Board of Regents of the University of OklahomaUniversity of Oklahoma

Pluralité de l'être by Edmée de la RochefoucauldReview by: Albert Guérard, Sr.Books Abroad, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Winter, 1959), p. 48Published by: Board of Regents of the University of OklahomaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40097722 .

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48 BOOKS ABROAD

On this basis the author is able to investigate and dismiss the idealist solution in which evil is miraculously suppressed by the knowledge of evil. Myth also leads to no metaphysical decision where evil is concerned, for it is mere- ly the imaginary transformation of a subjective torment into the objectivity of pure representa- tions. Beauty and tragedy, separately and to- gether, provide a sublimation or synthesis which is as unreal as that of the myth. The aesthetic and rationalist attributes are at best superficial while optimism and pessimism, when isolated theoretically, are condemned to the vanity of abstraction. Strangely enough, the balance sheet of atheistic negation is found to be triply positive: Atheism restores sensitiv- ity to the evil which sleeps in mythologies and pantheisms, awakens anguish and lays bare the essence of evil, which is the rupture between being and value; atheism renders impossible the return to that immanent God which was nothing more than an idol of the imagination and understanding by means of which man hid from himself the dislocated figure of real- ity; finally, atheism borrows its virulence from the critical power of the idea of God. By such reasoning one can find atheism purifying and go beyond it to demonstrate the retrogression of the ontological proof and the Pascalian wager in these later days.

Up to this point Borne has provided us with a brief but excellent history of the problem of evil while systematically eliminating all partial and thus unsatisfactory conclusions. His con- clusion is that the foundation of ethics is found in the idea of God and its presence in con- sciousness. Dilettantism, avarice, and fanati- cism are three means of avoiding the passion of man, that is to say his continued experience of anguish in the face of evil, which is in turn the Passion of Christ. Such a conclusion is a personal one, and as such legitimate, but it would seem to have little place in an introduc- tion to the problem. Furthermore, Borne falls into his own mystification or mythification when he states that "the will to change politi- cally the condition of men is one of the pas- sions of Prometheus." The will to change politically the condition of men is one of the passions of man which is an almost direct con- sequence of France's own eighteenth century. As the quotation indicates, Borne does not al- ways distinguish clearly among the many meanings of the word passion, but for all those interested in the metaphysics of evil, this little book is of infinite value.

F. C. St. Aubyn University of Delaware

* Lucien Goldmann. Le Dieu cachS: Etude sur la vision tragique dans les "Pensees" de Pascal et dans le theatre de Racine. Pa- ris. Gallimard. 1955. 454 pages. 1,400 fr.

In the "tragic" thought of Pascal and Racine, the author discerns a transitional stage be- tween classical rationalism and modern dia- lectic materialism. In spite of its avowed philo- sophical implications, the work casts much light on the writings studied, by placing them in their historical context, i.e., the social struc- ture of seventeenth-century France, in particu- lar the dilemma of the Jansenist movement, which they reflect. Pascal's view of life's para- dox is interpreted as foreshadowing dialectic thought, but lacking its historical perspective, and the evolution of the tragic element in Ra- cine's plays is shown to parallel closely the successive attitudes to the State adopted by French lansenism.

Paul H. Meyer University of Connecticut

K Edmee de la Rochefoucauld. Pluralite de Vitre. Paris. Gallimard. 4th ed., 1957. 95 pages. 300 fr.

Paradox or truism? For millennia poets and philosophers have noted that man was not a monolith, not a well-adjusted mechanism, not a smoothly functioning organism, not an ani- mated formula - but a welter of conflicting tendencies, compulsions, and impulses. On- doyant et divers. Never twice the same in time. Plural even at one given instant. Good collec- tion of notes and quotes: We feel ourselves dissolve as we read these pages. But no effort to grapple with essential problem: What is it that reduces this inner chaos to some degree of consistency and order?

A mild philosophical cocktail, recommend- ed as an appetizer.

Albert Guerard, Sr. Stanford University

* Henri Lefebvre. Problemes actuels du marxisme. Paris. Presses Universitaires de France. 1958. 127 pages. 300 fr.

The Marxist church is producing its reformer. The highly cultured writer complains bitterly about the corruptions which deform it, and cries: Back to the sources, Marx and Engels themselves! The corruptions are thoughtless dogmatism, mouthing empty and formal slo- gans; brutal interference with intellectual and individual freedom in the name of orthodox "ideology"; the massacre of freedom in Hun- gary; the absence of honest discussion among Marxists, as if there were no contradictions in

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