BOOKS
51
revolutionary critic to get his standards if not from the program on
which, as a revolutionary individual, he operates?
To return to the tradition of Eliot-that was founded on a unity of
rejection; but it
was
a unity; and for a decade it wonderfully trans–
formed literature. Mr. Wilson's criticism, though it offers no organic
alternative, curbs the sins of specialization of that movement and com–
bines its esthetic maturity with the insights of social history.
F. W.
DUPEE
THE DIALECTIC ACCORDING TO LEVY
A PHILOSOPHY FOR A MODERN MAN.
By H. Leuy. Alfred A.
Knopf. $2.50.
There is no doubt in the reviewer's mind that this is the most in–
telligent exposition of dialectical materialism that he has read. Mr. Levy
gives us what on first reading seems to be a fully adequate interpretation
of the higher mysteries of the dialectical process. Rather than the
product of an incantation and a mood, the Hegelian triadic hop-scotch
becomes something tangible, and something which can occasionally be
verified empirically in the field of physics as well as in the social field.
Viewed superficially, the book has one welcome characteristic-it
does not mention as examples of "contradictions" in nature the plus and
minus sign, action and reaction in mechanics, male and female, and
positive and negative charges of electricity. Levy is a scientist, and
does not have to parade his ignorance by hobbling on these splintered
old crutches. As examples of the change of quantity into quality the
tattered old instance of water changing to steam is not mentioned. And
the illustrations used are more fresh and hence more convincing than
those which veteran readers are accustomed to.
But as if to offset this feature, and still talking of its surface qualities,
the book suffers from a serious defect. The first few chapters are almost
sprightly, the style here being a valid earnest of fresh thought. But as
one reads on the style becomes gradually more soggy, and each page
becomes more painful to read, in a very literal sense. The sentences
become more wordy. Cliches and stereotypes stud the paragraph like
gravel incrusted on an asphalt road. And two or three readings of a
page are often necessary to grasp meanings which efficiently expressed
could be grasped at sight, since there is nothing particularly difficult or
unfamiliar about them.
Levy's book has, as we already know, received the
nihil obstat
from
the
censors librorum
in this country. But that does not free it from
theoretical difficulties of a very deep and serious nature. And yet the
freshest aspect of his thought, his exposition of scientific method, gives
him adequate basis to arrive without difficulty at conclusions intimately
in harmony with the best and most radical developments in contem–
porary philosophy.
