The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical EditionVol. 1: Apprentice Years, 1905-1918

A review of A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy, by Cardinal Mercier and other professors of the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Louvain. Vol. I. Trans. T. L. Parker and S. A. Parker. Preface by P. Coffey

London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1916. Pp. xxvi+ 573. ¹

The International Journal of Ethics, 28 (Oct 1917) 137-38

This work, which will be complete in two volumes, is in large part an abridgment of the well-known Louvain philosophical series, six volumes of which had appeared before the beginning of the war. The present work includes, besides a prefatory introduction to philosophy, Cosmology (by D. Nys), Psychology, Criteriology (Epistemology), and Ontology by Cardinal Mercier. ² The second volume will contain Natural Theology, Logic, Ethics, and History of Philosophy.

No student of contemporary philosophy can afford to neglect the neoscholastic movement since 1879. Great efforts have been made to bring the teaching of Aquinas up to date, and, as in Walker’s Theories of Knowledge, the non-Romanist philosopher will find his colleagues recognised and dealt with. ³ The Manualis decorated with four physiological plates, and Evolution receives five pages. Physical theories, which are divided into dynamism, represented by Leibniz, Kant, Boscovich and others, and energism, represented by Ostwald, Mach, Duhem and others, are discussed at greater length. ⁴ The reader who wishes to see how a modern philosopher is handled should turn to page 381for a refutation of Kant. ⁵ While the book should benefit especially those who have been accustomed to underrate Aristotle, it should be in the hands of all philosophers who do not know the larger, but incomplete work. The translation appears to be good, and the book is very well printed.

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