The Writings of Charles De Koninck: Volume 2

Preface

Preface This second volume of the Writings of Charles De Koninck begins with two short works published in , Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary, and The Primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists. The former is De Koninck’s first work in Mariology and is self-effacing in that it is made up in great part of citations from the Fathers and the saints on the role of Mary. And there is the pronounced influence of Marie Grignion de Montfort, then Blessed, since Saint, whose teaching on true devotion to the Blessed Virgin is often invoked. The serenity and edifying character of this work provides vivid stylistic contrast with The Primacy. The lengthy preface to the latter work by Cardinal Villeneuve sets the tone for what follows.What follows is not a single work, but two essays, that on the primacy of the common good and another called “The Principle of the New Order.” They are of course related: the second might be said to put historical clothing on the argument of the first, somewhat as Kierkegaard’s Postscript pays off in historical coin on the argument of the Philosophical Fragments. The personalism criticized in the Primacy is shown to have been exemplified in the history of western thought, beginning with Renaissance Humanism and culminating—that is, reaching its nadir—in Marxism and Fascism. The Primacy of the Common Good stirred up a surprising reaction,something manifest in the reviews of it by Yves Simon and Father Eschmann. While praising the book,Simon has a number of critical things to say.Among them is the danger that the Personalists attacked might be thought to include in their number Jacques Maritain.Any such assumption,he says,would be libelous. That is, Simon holds that the positive doctrine of De Koninck’s little treatise is not at odds with that of Maritain and that Maritain would share his criticisms of the “personalists.” Father Eschmann, on the other hand, rejects what De Koninck has to say of the primacy of the common good and takes the position he is attacking to be that of Jacques Maritain. vii DeKoninck-000.FM 5/13/09 3:58 PM Page vii His essay is called “In Defense of Jacques Maritain,” but it is characterized by the almost total absence of Maritain. Very far along in the essay, Father Eschmann finally turns to Maritain, but only to give the reader his own brief paraphrase of what he takes Martain’s personalism to be. Maritain is almost as absent from this defense as he is from De Koninck’s little book.1 It seemed well to include in this volume both Simon’s and Eschmann’s reviews. Without Eschmann’s review before him, no reader of De Koninck’s response, In Defence of St. Thomas, could possibly understand the length and tone of the work. That there were personal undercurrents at work, that relations between Eschmann and Cardinal Villeneuve were thought to motivate the Dominican’s attempted put-down of De Koninck, is true enough. De Koninck certainly rose in defense of the man who had written the preface to his book and notes that Eschmann attributes to De Koninck himself (laudatory) things the cardinal had said of him in his preface. No more need be known in order to appreciate the two defenses, one allegedly of Maritain, the other of St. Thomas. What galvanized De Koninck was the suggestion that he had misrepresented the thought of Thomas Aquinas.Since he felt that it was Eschmann who misrepresented that thought, a long and detailed refutation was called for. Many of the lacunae Simon noted in the Primacy are filled in by the lengthy Defence. Ralph McInerny, Notre Dame The originals of the texts included in this volume are: . Ego Sapientia . . . La Sagesse qui est Marie, Laval-Fides, ,  pp. . De la primauté du bien commun contre les personnalistes; le principe de l’ordre nouveau. Quebec, , xxiii– pp. . Yves Simon,“On the Common Good.” Review of  in The Review of Politics , no.  (): ‒ ‒. . I. Thomas Eschmann,“In Defense of Jacques Maritain,”The Modern Schoolman , no.  (May ): ‒ ‒. . “In Defence of Saint Thomas: A Reply to Father Eschmann’s Attack on the Primacy of the Common Good,” Laval théologique et philosophique , no.  (): ‒ ‒. viii | Preface DeKoninck-000.FM 5/13/09 3:58 PM Page viii . “La dialectique des limites comme critique de la raison,” Laval théologique et...