Franciscan Studies

BOOK REVIEWS177 representative government, a type that is deplorably lacking in many instances today. J.R. CRESSWELL West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia. A Philosophy of Submission; A Thomistic Study in Social Philosophy. By Rev. Henry V. Sattler, C.SS.R. Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 1948. Pp. xix-212. A doctoral thesis which deals with its subject under the headings of: Acts and Habits of Submission, Limitations by excess or defect, and Reasons for Submission, to use the views developed for a critical analysis of some contemporary non-Scholastic conceptions and a discussion of the application to society, religious and secular, state and family, education, economics, and finally in regard to "international society". Six pages of bibliography and an index are added. Submission is defined as the acceptance of ordination. The virtuous habits correlated to this acceptance are religion, piety, patriotism, observance, gratitude, and social justice. In its acts it gives support, honor, and service to the superiors, be they individuals or communities. Submission is necessitated by the finiteness and imperfection of man as a created being, by virtue of which the individual is in need of the community, the co-operation with others, the completion of his limitations. Submission springs from love, reverence, and careful meditation on the objective reality of individual and social dependencies. Thus, submission is an indispensable condition for a society to exist. Authority and planning, however great their importance, become effective only by the acceptance on the part of people. Submission as the recognition and acceptance of order on the part of the individual is an imperative need if order is to be restored in our times and in our world. The author is aware of the incompleteness of his study which, however, is welcomed as a first approach on a broad basis. One might have wished that the sources of all social philosophy, and so also of the discussions concerning submission, had been referred to, the philosophies of Plato, 178BOOK REVIEWS Aristotle, and the Stoics. But the author has refrained from historical inquiries. In one place he wanders off into the field of history to make Hegel responsible for the idea that discipline is instituted to break the will. But this idea is much older than Hegel and has been a tenet of pedagogics for centuries previous to Hegel's times. Social philosophy which is desirous to rest securely on the basis of Thomistic principles will undoubtedly profit from this study. RUDOLF ALLERS Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. A Familia. Sua Origem e E-voluçao. By CF. Barbosa. Rio de Janeiro: Editoria Vozes, 1948. Pp. 320. This volume by a professor of philosophy at the Collegio Estadual of Paraibo deals with the economic, juridical, and educational aspects of the family. Based chiefly on the papal teachings since rerum novarum, it gives a concise exposition of the problems, the present difficulties, the different theories on the family, from a Catholic standpoint. Because of the emphasis on practical and sociological questions the strictly philosophical questions are touched upon only incidentally. Reference is almost exclusively to the state of affairs in contemporary Brazil.. RUDOLF ALLERS Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. The Scientific C itlook. By Bertrand Rusell. Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1948. Pp. x-269-Index. This volume is a mechanical reproduction of the book which appeared in 1931. It is always a difficult matter to evaluate a work written some time ago; unless it has become a classic or the time of its writing is rather one long past, the differences between the standpoint of the author and the state of our actual knowledge make themselves felt in an un- ...