I suppose there is no greater and more devoted authority on the classic Thomist tradition than Father Garrigou-Lagrange. For well over forty years he has been writing in defence of that tradition. His first works were written at a time of crisis, when the very bases of faith were attacked by the Modernists. He was an apostle of Thomist realism against the immanentist, evolutionist and phenomenalist philosophies before modernism was condemned by Pius X. Writing now in his old age, long after that struggle of his youth, Father Garrigou feels that there are once again danger-signals of a falling away from St Thomas, and he is as convinced as he ever was that such a falling away will bring disaster to many. ‘Whither goes the new theology?’ he writes at the end of his book. ‘It is returning to modernism.’

In view of the urgency, as he sees it, he considers it timely to give us a constructive and concise statement of the whole system of philosophy and theology of St Thomas. In all controversial questions he takes, as he always has done, the more traditional view, almost always under the guidance of the classical commentator, Cajetan.

An English Catholic, aside from the main stream of Catholic thought, must wonder that there could be any foundation in present-day Catholic thinking for Father Garrigou-Lagrange’s fears. It is more in France than in England that much of the older theological tradition has been questioned in recent years.