196
PARTISAN REVIEW
salvage from the anti-formalists is primarily their temper-honest, hu–
mane, courageous, and rational. Their own experience can serve us in
the contemporary attempts to construct an adequate social philosophy.
So rich and powerful an essay makes it almost inevitable that the
reader regret Mr. White's failure to comment on matters that did not
perhaps lie strictly within the scope of the book. One would have wished
for a more rounded treatment of William James, of Brandeis and Car–
dozo, of Parrington. One would like to see an ampler biographical ac–
count of some of the characters-a discussion of the way, for example,
Holmes's very artistocratic conservatism spared him from some of the
excesses of Dewey. This reviewer would have asked, in particular, for a
more detailed discussion of the political implications of anti-formalism;
its whole relation, for example, to the doctrine of "democratic collectiv–
ism" of which Dewey was once so eloquent an exponent. And where
does Herbert Croly fit into the picture? Does not Walter Lippman em–
body in his career both the revolution and the counter-revolution?
To raise the questions is to indicate the brilliant suggestiveness of
Mr. White's work. It is a fundamental contribution to the revaluation
of liberal ideas. And it makes this contribution in the terms which count
for those who must operate within the American intellectual tradition.
We have all been ambiguous in our attitude toward the figures in Mr.
White's gallery. They are objects of reverence, but the reverence is vague
and propitiatory rather than specific. Yet the reverence persists, and
overwhelms the undercurrents of dissatisfaction. We honor Dewey be–
cause he is ninety, Holmes because he permitted all speech up to the
point of crying fire in a crowded theater, Veblen because he was a
heretic. Only the historians have fallen from grace, Beard, because he
was an isolationist, Robinson because no one reads him any more. One
of Mr. White's greatest contributions is to put our intellectual debts
in order. Like a receiver moving into a disordered estate, the books ly–
ing about in confusion and the master vacant and forgetful, he reminds
us where we got our ideas, which were sound and strong, which were
speculative, which were watered or wildcat. This book will do a great
deal to enable American intellectuals to come to terms with their own
most pervasive and intimate traditions.
A word should be added for the grace and the clarity of the writ–
ing, for the surefooted operations in the treacherous field of ideas, and
for the steady and intelligent exercise of the historian's responsibility of
judgment. One must note also the peculiar and inexcusable failure of
the publisher to provide the book with an index.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
