Works of art have been thought of in two very different ways. According to the modem view, the artist is a special or even abnormal kind of man, endowed with a peculiar emotional sensibility which enables him to see what we call beauty; moved by a mysterious aesthetic urge he produces paintings, sculpture, poetry, or music. These are regarded as a spectacle for the eyes or a gratification for the ear; they can only be enjoyed by those who are called lovers of art, and these are understood to be temperamentally related to the artist, but without his technical ability. Other men are called workmen, and make things which every one needs for use; these workmen are expected to enjoy art, if they are able, only in their spare time.

In ideal art, the artist tries to improve upon nature. For the rest, the truth of the work of art is held to be its truth to an external world, which we call nature, and expect the artist to observe. In this kind of art there is always a demand for novelty. The artist is an individual, expressing himself, and so it has become necessary to have books written about every artist individually, for since each makes use of an individual language, each requires explanation. Very often a biography is substituted for the explanation. Great importance is attached to what we call genius, and less to training. Art history is chiefly a matter of finding out the names of artists and considering their relation to one another. The work of art itself is an arrangement of colours or sounds, adjudged good or bad according to whether these arrangements are pleasing or otherwise. The meaning of the work of art is of no significance; those who are interested in such merely human matters are called Philistines.

In the course of a work on glorified bodies, which St. Paul calls spiritual bodies, the author, passing from the domain of sight to that of hearing, has been led to examine the mystical meaning of the various instruments enumerated in the psalms: strings, trumpets, organs, cymbals, flutes.

Now let the apple of thine eye cease! says the Book of Lamentations (2, 18).

The texts last cited are themselves an invitation to cross over from the domain of sight to that of hearing, from the domain of proportion to that of modulation, and from that of values to that of tonalities. Nothing in this world, says Saint Paul (1, Cor., 14, 10) is without voice. Even soulless things, be they flute or dulcimer, if they give not a distinction of sounds, how shall it be known what is piped and what is harped? And if the trumpet give forth an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle? Likewise you, except you utter by the tongue plain speech, that tongue which the Holy Spirit for evermore has put into our mouth, so that we might at last express ourselves, yield to the loving invitation (Arise, speak, my beloved, let me hear thy voice—as I have taught thee to hearken unto mine—for it is sweet). Canticle. The soul is become entirely praise and the daughter of music, after the phrase of Ecclesiastes (10, 2, 4), of that song, that resonant and melodious breath-control or neum (pneuma) of which the craving came to her at night (Job, 5, 10). Entirely is she herself the harp, in herself covering the gamut, and by octave upon octave the means of attaining from the lower to the higher. Arise, says David (Ps., 56, 9) Arise my glory, psaltery and harp. The flutes and psaltery make sweet melody, but a pleasant tongue is above them both (Ecclesiastes, 40, 21). He hath disposed ascensions in his heart, says the eighty-sixth Psalm.

The recent number of the Revue Thomiste, completely devoted to the life and work of Thomas de Vio, O.P., Cardinal Cajetan, is a model of its kind. The occasion of this publication was the commemoration of the fourth centenary of the death of that prince of Thomist commentators. He died on August 10th, 1534.

Though the studies are as diverse in character as in authorship, yet they present a remarkable unanimity with regard to that which was the chief characteristic of Cajetan’s life and work, namely the independence and objectivity of his mind. Those who have used his works will not be inclined to question this. He has been accused by some, indeed, of having shown an independence which was indistinguishable from rashness. But rashness was not his fault. His independence proceeded rather from a great intellectual honesty and courage which led him to carry principles to their logical conclusions without allowing human respect, or any equally unworthy moral influence, to hinder the steady course of his reasoning. If that was not due to his natural character, he had, at any rate, learnt it from his master, Aquinas, who had himself followed his principles unswervingly even though it meant committing himself to, as some think, terrible conclusions about the relationship of God to this world. But both one and the other preferred to be logical and come to a full-stop at inexplicable mystery, rather than to make compromises with sentiment and end in a contradiction which is irreconcilable with the very notion of God.

These letters have already been much reviewed; I briefly endorse, and need not repeat in detail, the well-deserved compliments which have been paid to their editor and their publishers. I can best show my sense of the book’s importance by treating some questions which a first reading has suggested.

It is natural to refer at once to those passages in the letters which discuss the technique of poetry, and especially the technique of Father Hopkins himself. Many readers, I think, have found obscurities in the author’s preface to his poems; and here some of the letters of Dixon are of great help. It is good, for instance, to have the vague reference to nursery rhymes supplemented by an analysis of Ding Dong Bell. Two unsatisfactory things remain. One is the use of the name ‘counterpoint’ for inversion of accent—this is hardly a difficulty, but it is an abuse of terms. The other is really a difficulty—an inconsistency in the use of the very important term ‘sprung rhythm.’ In one letter Hopkins says: ‘This then is the essence of sprung rhythm; one stress makes one foot, no matter how many or few the syllables’; later he says: ‘The word Sprung which I use for this rhythm means something like abrupt and applies by rights only where one stress follows another running, without syllable between.’

Allusion has already been made in Blackfriars (January, 1933, p. 10) to a remarkable movement for reunion among a small but learned and influential group of Lutheran pastors and laymen in Germany. Dr. Karl Thieme and his associates have since been reconciled with the Catholic Church. The documents connected with the events which led to their taking this step have recently been published—significantly by a Protestant firm in Switzerland. These documents are of the greatest interest, not only as indicative of some present tendencies in Continental Protestantism and as showing yet another of the manifold roads to Rome, but also as suggesting possibilities and hopes of a corporate reunion in a not remote future which may go far towards healing the divisions precipitated by the Reformation.

The decision to ‘return home’ to the Catholic Church was announced and explained in the last number of the Evangelical quarterly Religiöse Besinnung towards the end of 1933. In an article entitled Una Sancta Catholica, Dr. Thieme deplored the spirit of compromise in contemporary Christianity to which, he maintained, the German Evangelical Church had, owing especially to the activities of the ‘German Christians,’ completely and formally succumbed. The Evangelical tradition of Luther had, owing to a variety of causes, been completely destroyed in such wise that it could not be resuscitated. The pure Word of God could no longer be preached except under the protection of the successors of the apostles, the bishops of the Catholic Church.

It has been Mr. Dawson’s sound contention, time and again, in his various writings, that a civilization, a sociology, not founded on religion is bound to fail. His concern is ‘for the recovery of a vital contact between the spiritual life of the individual and the social and economic orgnization of modem culture.’ This concern is bom of a conviction that a culture, and hence a sociology, must have its roots firmly planted and established in theology and philosophy, otherwise the life-giving sap of religion will cease to flow. Then will the members lose their circulation, the tree will wither, and the social structure will disintegrate and decay. ‘If our civilization is to recover its vitality, or even to survive, it must cease to neglect its spiritual roots and must realize that religion is not a matter of personal sentiment which has nothing to do with the objective realities of society, but is, on the contrary, the very heart of social life and the root of every living culture. The desecularization of modem civilization is no easy matter; at first sight it may seem a hopeless task.’ But the Church has second sight; and the Church has her Liturgy.

The task before us, then, is the desecularization of modem civilization; and the means are ready to hand. Our Holy Father has given the lead: ‘Mindful, then, of our condition, that we are essentially limited and absolutely dependent on the Supreme Being, before everything else let us have recourse to prayer.’ Society, and every individual member of society, is called to a renewal of baptismal vows, and to yield its members to serve justice, unto sanctification.

Social science has already secured wide interest, and the forms in which this interest has manifested itself are as varied as they are numerous. In this article we shall concentrate on one central idea: the need of co-ordination of the vast amount of literature on social problems. The need of some such co-ordination is urgent. Ever since the publication of the Papal Encyclicals on Social Order, pamphlets and books have become so numerous that the student of social science might be alarmed at the number of works he must peruse in order to acquire a comprehensive knowledge of the literature of his subject.

It is very much to be regretted that no work exists that can be considered an exhaustive and scientific treatise on social science. The lack of such a treatise makes serious study of this subject too complex a task. Pamphlets and short treatises on particular problems are useful, but they can never be satisfactory from a scientific point of view; they are of necessity sketchy, and therefore inadequate. There is, moreover, a great danger that quantities of unrelated material will beget confusion of thought and smother enthusiasm. Consequently any attempt to give to the study of social science a scientific basis by stating and co-ordinating its principles is to be welcomed, and the more so when it is made by authors who are gifted with clarity of thought and who despite specialization keep in mind the larger view of a complete social science.

The Précis de Sociologie is the fruit of close collaboration. The essays, as thorough and substantiated as we may expect in a Précis, are confined to Sociology: the family, economic life, political life, religion, art and science.

The denominationalist claim to equality of treatment in education is still regarded by most people as a claim to special privileges and subsidies, to be granted, if at all, on traditional and sentimental grounds and on the grounds that denominationalism derives some vague rights from the fact that it is still ‘in possession’ in the legal sense. This confusion may be due in part to the fact that only one denomination, the Church, has stated with clarity the case for equal treatment, and that the statements have nearly all been made by clergy, who are naturally supposed to be arguing in their own interests. The following paragraphs contain a statement of the case for denominational education based solely on first principles and in such a form as to be valid for any denomination.

Education is for the sake of the child; but since the child is irresponsible, the first of all educational principles derives from the right to control the child and to control those things which exist for the sake of the child. Now the child belongs by nature to its parents first of all. By natural right the parents have control of the child until it is able to control itself. It is true that men are born citizens, and to that extent belong to the State, but parental ownership is anterior to, and takes precedence of, civil ownership. This follows necessarily from the fact that, before being a citizen, a child must exist; and existence comes not from the State, but from the parents.

Consequently the parents hold directly from Nature the right ana duty of educating their off spring, and this right is anterior to any right whatever of civil society or of the State. From this it follows that any system whereby parents are compelled to submit their children for education wholly to some authority not of their own free choice, is an unwarrantable interference with one of those fundamental liberties the protection of which is the first reason for the existence of the State and of cvil society.