Jacques Maritain Center : Readings

The Revival of Scholastic Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

Joseph Louis Perrier


(New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1909)

PREFACE

The present work consists of two parts, the first of which may be described as definitional; the second, as historical.

The first part (Chapters I to VIII) is not intended to be a complete course of Scholastic philosophy. I limit myself to an exposition and a discussion of those principles of Scholasticism, a knowledge of which is indispensable to an understanding of the Scholastic revival. For an adequate knowledge of Scholastic philosophy, I would refer my readers to the masterly expositions of Urráburn, Mercier, and the Jesuits of Stonyhurst. The shorter treatises of Ginebra and Pécsi are also excellent.

In the historical part, I have divided the speculative world into races rather than into political divisions. I have thus included German Austria in the chapter on Germany and devoted a separate section to Hungary. I have likewise studied South American republics in connection with the neo-Scholastic movement in Spain. It is into races, rather than into arbitrary tracts of land, that the world is divided. In spite of the ridiculous principle we call the Monroe doctrine, South American nations are and will always be essentially Spanish. With Spain they speak, they think and they pray. They regard us as strangers, sometimes as barbarians. They emphatically refuse to accept the protection we would force upon them.

In completing this second part, I have derived considerable help from the following works:

I tender my sincere thanks to the friends who have assisted me in the preparation of this book. In particular, I acknowledge my obligation to Professor John Dewey, of Columbia University.

NEW YORK, April, 1908.

CONTENTS

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