the same fixed details spells a victory for an Englishman; for a Frenchman it spells defeat."52 Again he says: "We break the flux of sensible reality into things at our will. We create the subjects of our true as well as of our false propositions. We create the predicates also. Cæsar crossed the Rubicon and was a menace to Rome's freedom. He is also an American school room pest, made into one by the reaction of our schoolboys on his writings. You see how naturally one comes to the humanistic principle. You can't weed out the human contribution. Our nouns and adjectives are all humanized heirlooms, and in the theories we build them into, the inner order and arrangement is wholly dictated by human contributions, intellectual consistency being one of them."53 "We add both to the subject and predicate part of reality. The world stands really malleable, waiting to receive its final touches at our hands. Like the kingdom of heaven, it suffers human violence willingly. Man engenders truths upon it."54

Schiller says on this point: "We supplement the inadequacies of our actual experience by assumed realities whose reality is assured to us by their value." But it would be useless to multiply quotations further. The idea is plain. Pragmatism claims for man full fling over his sensations; man impresses on sensations whatever form he wishes. This we flatly deny. No predicate is rightly applied by us to an object which has not a corresponding quality in that object, and that quality is antecedent is the reason why we apply such a predicate. Surely a man of James' intellectual perception can see that the reason why Waterloo spells victory to an Englishman and to a Frenchman defeat is not altogether due to a subjective way of thinking, but because of a quality in the object. Waterloo objectively was both a victory and a defeat. Objectively, too, Cæsar is both a menace to Rome's freedom and an American boy's school room pest. It is true we interpret facts in the light of past experience and present conditions, but always such interpretations are founded on the presence of corresponding qualities in the object. Hence the Pragmatists are convicted out of their own mouths, taking what they admit they can be logically constrained to concede a sum of realities apart and distinct from us, which is merely represented by our sensations. Or, if they wish to be impaled on the other horn of the dilemma, they are forced back upon idealism.

It is plain, then, that we do not make our universe; we only represent by our sensations and ideas realities already existing; we do not attach predicates at will to the objects of experience, or make reality as the Pragmatists would have it. And yet there is a half truth in that phrase, "making reality." The Pragmatists, however, have made it a whole truth. It is with the Pragmatists as it is with the Modernists. Catholic philosophy for a long time knew that God was immanent in all things; she knew besides that He was transcendent over all things; that He was separate and distinct from all things. Modernists took the half truth and closed their eyes to the whole truth. God is in all things, they argued; then all things are emanations of God, and pantheism alone solves truly life's riddle. Thus it is with Pragmatists. They, too, have a half truth which Catholic philosophy has always recognized. Let us see. Although there are many realities existing apart and separate from us, they do not become real to us until we know them. Many chemical realities existed before we studied chemistry; they became real to us when we had acquired a knowledge of that branch. Thus there can be a growth in subjective reality, that is, as my knowledge of things grows, the sum of things I know grows larger and more things become real to me. But can I make reality? In one sense, yes; for the realities I know are dependent in great measure on my different purposes in life. Let us take the example of a scholar who determines to study chemistry; it is due to that purpose that chemical realities become real to him. Thus he makes many realities for himself which are not real for another who does not know them. By studying astronomy a man will make a whole sum of realities for himself that will change his whole aspect of the universe, not that he makes these realities in themselves, but because his purpose to study astronomy is the cause of many objects becoming real to him. Besides, every thought, every action of ours is a reality; not a substantial reality, it is true, but an accidental one, one that is distinct from its subject, yet dependent upon it. By every thought and action we are changed, we are not as we were before; we have made reality, but, then, only accidental reality.

Finally, it is true within certain limits that we can work on the world of physical reality and make it more suitable to our needs. Since the world's perfection is a relative one, relative to its power of aiding man, we can make it more perfect, more suited to meet the demands made upon it. We can combine elemental substances to make them more serviceable to us; we can draw oxygen and hydrogen from water; we can produce gas and oils and numerous by-products from the destructive distillation of coal. We do not create one particle of matter or one quality or force in matter; we juxtapose, we combine, we separate what is offered us, and the results that follow are according to certain laws inherent in matter. We cannot create a single grain of dust or annihilate it; we cannot create the smallest fraction of energy or destroy it. 'Tis true we can change and order the elements which nature bounteously offers us, yet even here we cannot do with nature absolutely what we will. Our makings and unmakings of reality are according to fixed laws which we discover, but do not decree. Some elements we are powerless to unite; some unite, but only in fixed proportions or under certain rigid conditions; over some we have as good as no control. What does all this show, except that outside of us there exists a wondrous universe of realities subject to our control, but at the same time resisting it, allowing us to manipulate them, but always along certain lines, the laws of which are within their own natures and independent of us?

It is pleasant for lovers of Catholic philosophy to contemplate in her doctrine on reality another victory over those who do not own her sway. In her concept of reality she has all the advantages of the rival teachings and none of their flaws. By her teaching on universals she admits a certain idealism without becoming subjective and unreal; by her admission of a reality plastic along certain lines she contains the so-called inspiring tenets of pragmatism without falling into its absurd contradictions and logical impossibilities. Always moderate, always offering the most rational and commonsense explanation of the great problems that agitate the minds of men, Catholic philosophy is beautiful because she is true, and may we not say she is true because the Divine Hand of Eternal Truth is guiding her, that she may the better defend the sublime revelations nestling in the bosom of Catholic theology?

IGNATIUS W. Cox, S. J.

Woodstock, Md.

Book Reviews

A THESAURUS DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Designed to suggest immediately any desired word needed to express exactly a given idea. A dictionary, synonyms, antonyms, idioms, foreign phrases, pronunciations. A copious correlation of words. Prepared under the supervision of Francis Andrew March, LL. D., L. H. D., D. C. L., Litt. D., and Francis Andrew March, Jr., A. M., Ph. D. Quarto, pp. about 1,300, with marginal index. Philadelphia: Historical Publishing Company.

Our use of a "Thesaurus of the English Language" is comparatively modern. In London in 1852 appeared a volume entitled "Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, Classified and Arranged so as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas and Assist in Literary Composition," by Peter Mark Roget, M. D., F. R. S. It was intended to supply a collection of words and idiomatic combinations of the English language, "arranged not in alphabetical order as they are in a dictionary, but according to the ideas which they express," so that any one who has an idea may here find the word or words by which it may be most fitly and aptly expressed. This book has been for half a century a familiar part of the machinery used by authors, preachers, lecturers and professional men generally.

It was an excellent book, but it has gone out of date. The reading public, and especially the student body, has increased so enormously, and the English language has changed so extensively, that a new thesaurus is an urgent necessity. The first shortcoming in Roget is that there are no definitions of the words or explanations of the phrases. The book is really an index of words to be looked up in dictionaries and cyclopedias, unless one comes to it with his mind thoroughly stored with words and meanings.

Roget's arrangement is primarily one of nameable objects "It is impossible we should thoroughly understand the nature of the signs unless we first properly consider and arrange the things signified," is his motto, taken from Horne Tooke's "Diversions of Purley." He classifies nameables, after the manner of the English psychologists, into matter, mind (intellect, volition, affections), space and abstract relations, and divides and sub-divides these until he makes out an even thousand divisions, and into these he puts all the words. In order to find any word it was necessary to think out in which sub-division its idea belongs. This is worse than Ettmüller. It was necessary to add a verbal index, alphabetically arranged, with references to the groups by number. It is not easy, indeed, to find a word after you know the number of its group, for the group may contain a hundred words in no manageable order.

The machinery of a serviceable dictionary is found in the alphabet. The invention of alphabetic writing has been often pronounced the most important ever made. It is not the least of its benefits to mankind that it affords the means of making knowledge accessible. Every one knows the letters of the alphabet. If all thoughts are arranged under their words, and the words arranged in alphabetic order, any one can find off-hand any of the million facts and thoughts which are stored in the dictionary. The use of simple alphabetic order is almost as important an invention as the representation of words by single signs of the elementary sounds.

The material of this thesaurus has been brought to alphabetic order. The publisher suggested that it be called a "Thesaurus Dictionary," believing that the word "thesaurus" will easily assume the meaning of groups and "dictionary" that of alphabetic arrangement. An example of its use brings out most clearly its usefulness. In using the Thesaurus Dictionary, look up any word connected with your subject in its alphabetic place in the vocabulary list in larger black type, exactly as in a common dictionary. Anger, for example, is found thus on page 45. It is there briefly defined as a violent passion, and two groups to which it belongs are then mentioned in small capitals-Excitability-Inexcitability and Favorite-Anger. To study the first group turn to Excitability-Inexcitability in its alphabetical place in the general vocabulary, page 372. There, under this heading, are two parallel columns, the left hand for Excitability, the right for Inexcitability, each running for a couple of pages and bringing together some one hundred and fifty words and phrases. They are divided into nouns, verbs, verbal phrases, adjectives, etc., arranged in alphabetic order. The first column contains all words and phrases naturally associated according to the laws of similarity, contiguity and comprehension, synonyms and the like; the second column contains a similar group related to the first column according to the law of contrast, antonyms, polar opposites and the like. By means of cross-references other groups of associated meaning are brought to the attention.

This illustration shows that the book is really a combination of dictionary and thesaurus, and its value can hardly be exaggerated. It contributes wonderfully to accuracy, nicety and clarity of expression, and it is indispensable for one who values these qualities in speaking and writing. In the appendix we find a study of our English speech, embracing its origin, history, roots and derivations, forms and relations, spellings and spelling reforms, etc.

SOME ASPECTS OF RABBINIC THEOLOGY. By A. Schecter, M. A., Litt. D. (Cantab.) 12mo., pp. 384. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1909. All rights reserved.

The contents of this book have grown out of a course of lectures