Arthur Koestler is a writer of great intelligence and strong convictions, who has for years been carrying on a single-handed fight against that modern mechanical mystery of ingenuity, the Totalitarian State. He fights alone because he is a writer of the Left, even of the extreme Left, who refuses to accept the myths and rationalizations of his party and is just as outspoken in his condemnation of the totalitarianism of the Left as he is of the totalitarianism of the Right. He fights alone, also because he feels acutely the spiritual tragedy of modern man and the need for spiritual reintegration, and yet rejects any positive religious solution of the problem. His diagnosis of the situation is expressed in the title of his book)—the polar opposition of the passive contemplation of the naked Indian ascetic and the ruthless activism of the Communist bureaucrat.

No doubt the opposition is psychologically justifiable in terms of the pure introvert and the pure extravert, but I do not feel that it really fits the modern situation, and particularly that aspect of the situation to which Koestler devotes so much of the present volume. For what he is mainly concerned with is not the opposition of action and contemplation, but rather the frustration of the modern intelligence in a world which it has done so much to create. The revolutionary intelligence created the Marxian ideology, which in turn produced the Communist State. But something has gone wrong in the process. The intellectuals believed and taught that the Dictatorship of the Proletariat would be followed by the “withering away” of the State. In fact, however, what has happened has been the development of a State power more absolute than any absolutism of the past, and it has been the intelligentsia which has “withered away”.

The Founder of the Dominican Order was a Spaniard of the thirteenth century, alive to the needs and conditions of his age and steeped in tradition. His spirit survives in his Order, and the friars of to-day still bear the mark of that Spanish modernity and strength.

St. Dominic was a man of his age, vital and ‘modern.’ The representatives of the Church in his day had been overtaken by time and in many ways left behind in an earlier age. The Church was losing ground because the churchmen of the time were unaware of current problems and consequently unable to find the right means to correct the bias of the spiritual force then working strongly among the people. The Cathari and Albigenses were the Communists of the thirteenth century, appealing to a general fraternity and calling for a purification of society with as much zeal and apparent asceticism as the Nazi, Fascist-or Communist. They drew the people away from the Church. By their works you shall know them—works testify to truth. These men of austere life seemed to have the Spirit; the Church with its easy-going monks and ecclesiastics seemed in comparison to have betrayed its ideal. And for the heretic matter was evil; things of the flesh, things made by man for his use and delight, art and ritual, had come from the evil spirit of lies, and truth was not in them.

Then again the towns and cities of Europe were growing. Commerce had moved from the landlords in their rural stability and passed into the hands of the bourgeois traders of the larger towns, and the centres of culture had also been transferred from the great monasteries dotted over the countrysides of Europe to the nascent universities of the cities.

Calmly and seriously we take up anew the task which we could not bring to completion before. We speak again. And before all else, to our brethren everywhere we say this : however far apart we may be, however blank our ignorance of each other’s faces and even names, let us live together as believers in Christ, as the upholders on earth of his Spirit.

We have not, we must admit, escaped failure. We have lacked something, lacked that spiritual violence which alone storms the Kingdom of Heaven and without which to be gentle is to be a coward. We have lingered over things preliminary to the Faith or consequent upon it, forgetting our first task, to keep alive Faith in the Crucified. And that is how the Salt of the Earth turns savourless.

Here and now, then, we proclaim the need for contemplation, and in particular for contemplation of the Redemption actually at work in the world. What is contemplation but the noblest Christian activity, the supreme labour of love? How can Charity be alive in the world if it be not alive in our minds’ effort to explore the mysteries of our Faith? If we submit ourselves—and rightly—to all the lowly tasks that are part of authentic Christian living, this must not cause any misunderstanding of the nature of our obedience. It is not the blind obedience of a slave, like a pawn in some great game beyond his comprehension. We are friends, not slaves. Light has been given us and light is required of us.

It is significant of the better relations existing between bodies of Christians that theological differences can be discussed without the bitterness that was one time so prevalent. This Anglican book is a model of the way in which such discussions should be conducted. We must recognise and acknowledge the sympathy and humility with which he puts forward his views. The points of difference we develop can contribute to the discussion only in so far as we make that recognition, and acknowledge ourselves to be as individuals poor vehicles of the Divine Truth.

‘The essential forms of the Church,’ says Fr. Hebert, ‘mark out its shape or structure, by mediating to us the Redemption on which the Church’s existence is based . . . Old Israel, the ecclesia of the old covenant, was based on the redemption by which God delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt . . . The Church of Christ is based on the Redemption effected by His death and resurrection, on the New Covenant inaugurated thereby, and on His establishment of it as the New Israel. Both the Old and the New look back to a Sacred History, a Heilsgeschichte, an epic story of God’s saving work. The Bible tells the story, the Creed sums it up, as a Gospel-message, the Sacraments set it forth, the Apostles proclaim it to men. There could be no such essential forms if Christianity consisted essentially of moral and religious ideals, nor yet if its essential proclamation were that there is an Inner Light. There must be such essential forms for a faith that rests on a Sacred . History ‘(p. 14).

Lionel Curtis has now collected in one volume four of the pamphlets he wrote during the war). We are greatly indebted to him for this collection which certainly deserves careful reading by all who are devoted to the cause of peace and who take the shaping of the future seriously. For the essence of his case, here powerfully stated, is that sovereignty excludes the rule of law and leads to anarchy and to a fragmentation of human society in which the will of the stronger ultimately prevails. Such a world is doomed to war unless the national States surrender their sovereignty and merge it into one international sovereign State.

In fact, it cannot be disputed that international law has failed to maintain peace between the States and that this is mainly due to the fact that the national States have not relinquished their sovereignty. For sovereignty is uncontrolled, irresponsible and unlimited power. It embodies in collective entities the evil spirit of selfishness which knows no restraints and no standards of judgment other than its own. It entitles the State to maintain its political existence in the international sphere, even against justice and law. This state of affairs explains why, in the age of the national state, every international question of political weight has become overlaid by considerations of force and power, and why any State, for the sake of its honour, its political existence or its vital national interests can declare war on another State and thereby annul the existing international relations between the States. Writers on international law have even developed the doctrine of the lawfulness of war, although the effect of war is always to exclude the operation of law. Briefly, sovereignty legitimizes licence and arbitrariness and makes an effective institutional world organisation impossible. It perpetuates chaos in international relationships and cannot lead to a pacification of the world.

Contemplation is the way to peace. But there are some who hold the contrary, not without good reason: for.

1. Those who are entrusted with the drawing up of peace- treaties are generally men of action. And if we find much to criticise in their achievements, we can rarely doubt their goodwill and we must admit their success in establishing what all men are agreed to call peace.

2. Contemplatives withdraw from the world to seek peace as the first condition for the fulfilment of their vocation.

Against this we have the testimony of the Church’s liturgy: Beata pads visio. That is to say, peace is achieved through a vision or contemplation.

Peace is something more than concord. There is concord when one party to an agreement accepts his obligations reluctantly, but there is no peace: one desire conflicts with another, there is no tranquillity or order in his soul. Yet desire is never completely at rest until the soul is in the presence of God. A relative tranquillity can, however, be attained in this world, more or less perfect according to the degree to which we perceive that only He who created our soul can maintain its harmony. When the perception of this truth contents us we are at peace. And this is attained through contemplation.

The order in the world and its tranquillity are fashioned according to a divine plan. Those who seek peace cannot therefore afford to neglect examination of the design which it is their task to realise: “They must be made to climb the ascent to the vision of Goodness, which we called the highest object of knowledge; and, allowed to remain on the heights, refusing to come down again to the prisoners.”

‘The sum of Thy Words is Truth,’ and for us who have to search for that Truth fidelity or loyalty to it when discovered. Easy in theory, difficult in practice : ‘ascetic practices,’ says St. Jerome, ‘for example continence or mortification of the flesh, are of great value; but nothing is so mortifying as knowledge of the truth ‘(On Nahum ii. i, P.L. xxv, 1244); he seems to be thinking of a man’s reactions on coming up against some wholly unexpected truth, something running counter to his preconceived notions. ‘Nothing,’ says St. Augustine, ‘is easier for a person not merely to say but really to think he has discovered the truth ; but how difficult a thing that is ! ‘(De Utilitate credendi, 1). If the Bishop of Hippo could ever have felt annoyed, he who had made the search after truth the passion of his life must have felt indignant when Secundinus the Manichee told him : ‘the truth makes you as angry as philosophy made Hortensius ‘(Ep. ad Augustinum, 3, P.L.xlii, 574).

Our Dominican history furnishes us with three great examples, among many others, of this unflinching loyalty to the truth as they saw it, a loyalty which was not obstinacy but conviction based on the triple foundation of reason, faith, and their outcome—humility.

By their own unaided efforts neither individuals nor nations can attain the last end ot man on this earth—union with God. Now the duty of governments is twofold : to make every provision that their subjects may lead good and virtuous lives, and to prepare them for their eternal destiny. Hence it is one of their chief tasks to see that religion should hold its rightful place in national life. The task directly committed by God to the rulers of nations is to provide for the physical and temporal welfare of the citizens; to promote their spiritual and eternal welfare is the indirect task of governments, in so far as they are bound to assist the Church in carrying out her work in the Mate. The Church comes to terms with every form of government or political institution, provided that ‘the rights of God and of conscience are safeguarded ‘(Pius XI). It is the mission of the Church of God to teach the nations the principles of religious and moral life, to inculcate and to ensure them. For this is the field entrusted to her for cultivation by Christ, the absolute ruler in the kingdom of truth and love. Nothing contributes so effectively to the welfare of nations as loyal co-operation between ecclesiastical and civil authorities, whose distinctive spheres of action, with due regard to the special circumstances prevailing in each country, have been made to harmonies. In this the Church has to accomplish a task as responsible as it is exalted.

The Faith transcends all differences in national character. In ancient times the nations fashioned their religions according to their own lights; by human means they established national religions, which often enough lead to self-worship. Their cult sprang from their own narrow conceptions, and was not inspired by God.

There are obvious difficulties about reviewing a dictionary, especially when the dictionary approaches the status of an encyclopedia in the variety of the matters covered and the method of treating them. The most useful way in which can deal with the Dictionary of World, Literature is first to indicate the general scope of the book, then to consider the various forms which the discussion of literature may take and to” use examples from the book to point or illustrate my remarks.

The dictionary as a whole is not concerned with judgments on particular or collective works of literature, but with general ideas bearing on literature, literary forms and technique, ancient and modern criticism, schools and movements, and rhetorical terms. Thus Dante and Milton are not appraised as poets, but their poetical theory is resumed, and the forms they used are considered under such headings as Epic, Sonnet, Terza rimas, English verification. The amount of actual information given is large and wide-ranging, and the Editor may be praised for his general planning and his marshalling of contributors.

Of the various ways in which literature may be discussed the most important is the most general—the examination of the nature and purpose of literature in the light of metaphysics and morals. This may be called the philosophy of literature, and its value evidently depends on the truth of the higher principles it appeals to and the skill with which deductions are made. False principles to begin with, or inexperience in application, may render it nugatory or harmful. It is nowadays rare to find a writer on literature whose general philosophical training is adequate for the attempt, and Mr. Shipley has been fortunate in securing a leaven of such work for his dictionary.

Léon Bloy, who fought in 1870, suffered great poverty all his life, and died in 1916. He knew, as a matter of personal experience here on earth, that the absence of God is Hell.

Le Pélerin du Saint Sépulchre, as he called himself, he lived at the loot of the Cross, with infinite longing; seeing in History the great span of God’s holy Will (’ I am going to write a History of the Will of God ‘) stretching from the Fall to the Incarnation and from the Incarnation to the still unrealised reign of the Spirit; and underneath, the horror of godless man, ‘la hideur plus qu’effroyable d’un monde qui a cessé de ressembler à son Créateur ‘(La Femme Pauvre, p. 214). His meditation was all in depth, taking this form:

‘For I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid, a weak man and of short time, and falling short of the understanding of judgement and laws.’ (Wisd. ix, 5.).

What do we mean by the ‘mind of the Church’? In the most obvious sense the Church is an autocracy : the life and the power and the wisdom are from above, from the Head which is Christ. But there is another sense in which the life of the Church has its democratic aspect: for the vitality and vigour of the Church, the degree in which the life and power and wisdom are used and expressed, this depends not least on the masses of the faithful, on their acceptance of and response to what is given. So the development of the Church’s dogma is a process which can be found to begin from below : first the gradual fermentation of the idea in the devout life of the layfolk, then its discussion and analysis in the controversies of theologians, then finally the decisive voice, the consecration, by the wisdom from above, of the truth in these new discernments and elucidations of ancient fact. Can there be a similar process in the realm of morals? We do well to remember the power of the Spirit in giving to the hearts of the simple and unlearned a sense of the right and the good. In two ways this connatural knowledge, as St. Thomas calls it, differs from the work of the theologian and may complement it: it goes straight to the conclusion, while the theologian, working in another medium, must first sift and test the premisses; it concerns the particular fact or type of fact, where theology is concerned primarily with the general principle.

The inner history of a social experiment, if told by a chief actor in it, is nearly always interesting to the reader, as well as being valuable to those working in the same field. And the whole subject of delinquency among children and adolescents has become an urgent one for many who, in this time of war, are looking ahead to the generation which will inherit our land afterwards.

An accounts has been published of a venture made in treating “in a free environment on sympathetic and individual lines” boys and young men who had, in various ways and degrees, shown themselves “misfits”, or as anti-social. Not all were law-breakers, and only exceptionally had a member of Hawkspur Camp been in prison; but many were rapidly qualifying for Borstal sentences, and all provided material for Mr. Will’s intensive study, and the working out of his purpose when he accepted the post of Camp Chief.

He was backed by a little group of Quakers who were concerned with the problem of training maladjusted youth, and his staff was formed of a few men prepared, like himself, to tackle it by wholly unconventional methods. They started in May, 1936, with a very inadequate capital, of which £500 was spent in buying a site, and a group of tents until they could put up rough buildings, as bunk-houses, dayroom, etc., by their own labour. The first member to present himself had read about the new “Q Camps” in a paper and, thinking it was the sort of place he needed, had written to ask for admission. He was a typical waif, having been deserted by his parents in babyhood; and, at the age of twenty-three, he had never known security or understanding in his life.

The experience of Rimbaud was too drastic to serve as an object-lesson. In spite of him and Une Saison en Enfer the same error went on—an error of aim or direction, a false deflection of energy; and this despite the fiercest and most vaunted efforts to see more deeply into poetic consciousness. But now there was to be no fullstop; now the journey, it was presumed, was to go on and on to the world’s end and beyond ; down a track that led nowhere, in a train that could not move. And this, in a way, can be done : in a sort of dream, thanks to a sort of magic.

Because it tries to make use of poetry to fulfil man’s desires and his search for knowledge and his hunger for the absolute, surrealism, has for us a special historical importance.

Remember the remark of Marcel Raymond—to which I have already referred—’ to declare the game not yet over, that all might still be saved from the wreck, was the essential message of surrealism.’ But in fact the surrealists too fell victims to poetic knowledge. At first they were above all concerned to rediscover what Raissa Maritain, in the first of the essays in this book, calls ‘That river in the mind underlying all our ordinary activities, that deep, authentic indefinable reality, perceived by the soul from time to time when she opens herself to the unknown and is revivified thereby.’ And I doubt not they did enjoy some moments of high ecstasy (in the natural order) when the soul ‘bathes once more in the spring of her being, is refreshed and strengthened,’ by the poetic experience. No need to refuse them this much good fortune.

Quam sine fictione didici, et sine invidia communico, et honestatem illius non abscondo; infinitus enim thesaurus est hominibus.—’ The lessons she taught me are lessons honestly won, shared without stint, openly proclaimed; a treasure men will find inexhaustible ‘(Wis. vii).

At any time during the early years of this century, if you consulted Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and turned up the reference under ‘Angelic Doctor,’ you would read this : ‘Angelic Doctor, The, Thomas of Aquino, so called because he discussed how many angels could dance on the point of a pin.’ Whether, in fact, any schoolmen did devote attention to this rather specialised subject, I have often tried to discover, but have never managed to trace the legend further back than Tristram Shandy, where I strongly suspect that it originated. I only use that quotation here to draw your attention to a singular fact; namely that in the last twenty-five years or so the great saint whom we commemorate to-day has, in a way, come into his own—even in these days of loose thought, and of unlaborious reading. To-day, even Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable has been, corrected, and wherever you meet a man who professes interest in things of the mind, you will find that St. Thomas means something to him. Possibly he will use the name ‘Aquinas,’ to indicate that this is not an author with whom he is on friendly terms; almost certainly he will admit that he has never tried to read ‘Aquinas.’ But there will be respect in his voice; he will know that he is referring, not to a medieval quibbler, but to an author whose works are one of the milestones in the history of human thought.

Twenty-five years ago, Father Martindale, writing on “The Movies” in the very first number of Blackfriars, decided that “the thing can be used as well as misused, like thyroid or theology”. Since he wrote, the situation has changed: it can no longer be said that in the cinema “voice-anxiety is eliminated”, and we are usually spared “Bishops wearing their mitres at the tea-table and Abbesses giving absolution”. The “hundreds of thousands” who visit the pictures weekly in this country have become as many millions. But the need for a solid basis of criticism is as urgent as ever. The vast technical development of the cinema, its tremendous commercial growth and social importance, have not been matched—at least not among Catholics—by much discrimination.

It is of little use any longer to deplore the existence of the cinema. It is firmly established as the most popular form of entertainment, and one supposes that Catholics are to be found in their proportion to the population as a whole among the weekly millions. There are many features of the cinemas as an industry which are certainly deplorable, but these should not prejudice an objective examination of the cinema as a medium, though in fact “what is wrong with the films?” can usually be traced back to “what is wrong with the Big Business behind them?” But it is difficult to envisage much change in the commercial side of the cinema: the tendency is all towards more mergers, more mammoth corporations spreading their tentacles from the studio right down to the local Ritz. For the cinema is not strictly an art; it is an industry which—among many other people—employs artists. Like any other commercial undertaking, the question it ultimately asks is: “Will it pay?” From the factory (the studio) to the shop-counter (the box-office) this is the real preoccupation; and the millions queueing nightly from Barnstaple to Bogota, they are the people who decide.

It is possible, in the daily intercourse of living, to be familiar with every detail of a man’s behaviour and habits, and yet to understand nothing of the man himself; or in history, to wade through volumes about some figure or movement, and yet not to be any closer to the reality. Then, suddenly, one chances upon a formula, a character-equation, which explains all, which renders coherent and intelligible what had before been isolated and inexplicable problems of history or of personal acquaintance.

Let me illustrate. For years I had known a certain man of my own age and profession, conversed with him, studied with him, idled with him. Now, after all this I never became intimate with him, as it is a commonplace that knowledge may never ripen into friendship. Here familiarity never developed even into knowledge. The springs and fountains of the man’s conduct were completely hidden from me. We had exchanged a thousand views with each other, but we had never exchanged ourselves. All the time I felt dimly that there was some lack, some defect, which precluded intimacy. For four or five years our relations stood thus, our good fellowship more apparent than real, when, quite unexpectedly from nowhere, a character-formula (I cannot think of a more apt word) flashed upon me.

There had been nothing to indicate any ground for our divergence, when one day my demon or my angel whispered : not in what he did, not in what he said, but in what he left unsaid will you find an answer.

The obligation to be perseverant in study is an essential characteristic of the Order of Preachers. It has been so from the beginning. The modern form of the Constitutions shows the importance which the Order attaches to it, not only by the express statement of this obligation in Constitution No. 189, but by the repetition, almost word for word, of that statement in No. 690. In a document generally regarded as reflecting the succinctness of the Code of Canon Law, with which it was brought into conformity in 1932, and as somewhat sharply contrasted with earlier editions in this respect, such a repetition carries enormous force. It provokes an enquiry into the mode of life which it conditions and into the character of those who are dedicated to its fulfilment. The text itself is instructive: ‘Our priests, by reason of their vocation, or of the special purpose of the Order, are all the more (i.e. by comparison with those students not yet ordained to the Priesthood) bound to be perseverant in study throughout their whole life, especially in the study of dogmatic and moral theology, of sacred Scripture, of the Holy Fathers, and of the other sacred sciences, both for the purpose of fostering spiritual life in themselves, and in order to render themselves daily more fit to exercise the apostolic ministry with fruit.’ (Constitutions, 189).

The reference to the special purpose of the Order requires the further quotation of Const. No. 3 : ‘Our Order is known to have been specially instituted from the beginning’ for preaching and the salvation of souls.

The term ‘democracy’ as used to-day requires a definition. Originally it was applied to a form of government controlled by the people’s voice in a popular Assembly; but with the growth of States and the impossibility of direct expression of the popular will it came to mean representative government; that is to say, government by a parliament consisting of representatives nominally chosen by the people. But for the same reason that ordinary citizens of a modern State were unable to intervene in the processes of legislation and the actions of the executive, it was found to be impossible (or at all events inadvisable) for them to select the men who were to represent them. This was done by the Party caucuses, and all that was left to the citizen was permission to vote for one or other of the caucus nominees. During the last decade or so the term has been so loosely used that its positive content is almost nil, and its main characteristic has come to be a purely negative abhorrence of traditionalism and of certain forms of authoritarian government (though by no means all) confused under the general term ‘Fascist.’ To make confusion worse confounded a social connotation of the adjective ‘democratic ‘has persisted through all these changes. Because in the democracies of the original City States free men were politically equal, the word ‘democratic ‘is now used as a synonym for ‘egalitarian’ in a social as well as a political sense, and this extension of meaning is further extended to cover societies in which there is no true egalitarian spirit, but only an aversion to certain kinds of privilege.

During the last thirty years the exploitation of language by the linotype, radio and cinema has made words cheap, obscured their meaning and dulled our perceptions. Our idea of goodness is likely to be haunted by a phantasm of Guiness, and if it becomes coterminous with Guiness it becomes false. Our understanding of the difference between glamour and beauty is likely to be hazy, not only because of film stars, for Blackpool and the Scottish Highlands are both described as glamorous. We live in a world where sound in general and words in particular are scattered about with insensate prodigality and disregard for the consequences, and we cannot fail to become in some degree insensitive to the meaning and value of words.

Words were created to be the means of conveying thought. How often do they convey thought and how often only ‘sound and fury signifying nothing.’ The popularity of a slogan lies more in its sound than in its meaning; you can always lead the crowd by an attractive noise, and if you are unscrupulous by an evil meaning noise. While it is possible for a slogan to enshrine a gem of wisdom it is also possible for a slogan to be gibberish. When the press makes its appeal through such noise all stimulus of thought is killed, the channels of intellect are silted up with a deposit of jargon and cliches and we lose the power to distinguish between sound and significance. So our thoughts become muddled and consequently false.

“When I first took up rescue work,’’ wrote Canon J. Bennett, Administrator of the Liverpool Catholic Children’s Protection Society, “the late Mgr. Hudson drew up for my guidance ‘Ten Commandments of Rescue Work’. The last was, ‘If a child fails, examine your own conscience’.”

The same Mgr. Hudson also wrote, “The test of good rescue work is aftercare.” It was his view that the best method of aftercare, for boys at any rate, was to be found in a well-conducted Working Boys’ Home. It may be that he was right. I cannot say, for it so turned out in my experience that Working Boys’ Hostels, as they were called, were practically a failure. “A Working Boys’ Home is a most difficult and a most expensive organisation to run. The Superintendent in charge must be a man of deep spiritual instincts, a man of practical faith, a man of refinement and education, a man of business mind who can win the confidence of employers, a man whose very presence is a joy to the boys, one who inspires them with his justice and Catholic character. Given such a man, I can unhesitatingly say that the great majority of the boys will become steady workmen and practical Catholics.” That, also by Mgr. Hudson, is certainly a very good description of the right man for the job.

There have been of recent years some half-dozen different attempts in London to run Working Boys’ Hostels under such management, and all ended in failure. I believe there were as many attempts in the past which ended in much the same way. A few years ago, a house was taken in Steele’s Road, Hampstead, N.W. One couple after another went in, and after a few weeks, or months, threw up the job, or were practically thrown out.