Abstract
This is a very good and important book: good as a piece of philosophical exposition, important because of its subject-matter. The quality of the author’s writing reminds one of Gilson, whom he often quotes. Dr. Leclerc has the two qualities most admired in Gilson, lucidity and a capacity for bringing out the distinctive characters of the doctrines he discusses. The great temptation of the expositor is to reduce an original theory to terms, either of ordinary language or of some other theory, in which the differences between one philosopher and another are reduced to matters of emphasis, or of arbitrary decision between a priori alternatives. The only satisfactory way of expounding any worthwhile philosophy is to give life and clarity to its own characteristic terms and ways of argument.