We have undertaken in this paper a reconsideration and development of two lectures: the first one, entitled "The Human Person and Society," was the Deneke Lecture, given at Oxford, May 9, 1939, and published in a limited edition (Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1940); the second one, entitled "The Person and the Individual," was given in Rome at the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas, November 22, 1945, and will appear in Volume XII of the Acts of this Academy. [Editor's Note: Chapters I-IV have appeared in "The Review of Politics" for October, 1946. Chapter V has not previously appeared in print.] We have also made such use of several of our earlier inquiries into this subject (Cf. Freedom in the Modern World and The Rights of Man and Natural Law) as to be able to present here a brief and, we trust, sufficiently clear synthesis of our position on a problem about which there have been numerous and (as I like to believe) involuntary misunderstandings. Rome, Feb. 6, 1946.
J. M.