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Roots and Unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Conrad Pepler O.P.
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Extract

When a man is granted a vision he is always, at least at first, worth listening to. He may later obscure the vision by his own petty fanaticism, but so long as the sight is granted him and so long as he is the receiver rather than the generator he will have something of value to say. Men should therefore bear him with patience and with an open mind, and they will surely learn from him. The danger of brushing visionaries aside comes in particular to those who consider themselves to be so entirely possessed of the truth, that they have nothing more of value to learn—and there are numbers of such complacents.

These remarks are occasioned by two books which have indeed been received with an open mind by many, but which run the risk of being set on one side by those who would most benefit by them, namely the fervent Christian who looks once again for a united Christendom.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 6 , Issue 71 , May 1952 , pp. 466 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 A Land, by Jacquetta Hawkes. (Cressett Press; 21s. First Impression May, I951.)

2 cf. pp. 229-236 of The Need for Roots, by Simone Weil. (Routledge & Kegan Paul; 18s.) Mr T. S. Eliot in his Preface to this book pointed out some of the strange anomalies in the character of this prophetess'; but in spite of these he is rightly aware of her great importance as a thinker.

3 it is perhaps one of her inconsistencies that Miss Weil retains as great a dislike for Aristotle and St Thomas as she does for the Roman habit of mind in general.