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PA RT I SAN REVIEW
The literalness that makes him a good cntIc of the latter set of ideas
seriously hampers him in the treatment of literature, which registers so
much beside. The ideal of "communion," of general cohesiveness, con–
sequently becomes a bit sticky and intimidating in Mr. Lewis's hands.
Mr. Lewis
is
an acute and reasonably original writer on the con–
junctions of literature and philosophical religion. I n one place at least
he clears the air as effectively as any Amis.
But in the nineteenth century the movement ran sharply in the
other direction: toward a reduction of theology to one of the arts, or
toward a diffusion of it among them all. Theology in that age was a
singularly Protean affair; it existed and exercised its influence every–
where and nowhere; intellectual history scarcely knows where to have
it. For if, by theology, we mean the notions held-and rendered more
or less articulate and orderly-about the relation of God and man; and
if, by religion, we mean a radiance of conscience inciting actions with
respect to that ultimate relation: then we are faced with a paradox.
A century ago, matters (of literary endeavor, of historical perspective,
or morals) brought forward with nothing like doctrinal theological
definition were nonetheless propelled with something very like religious
force .
This is well and courageously said. Mr. Lewis and I went to school
when the serious study of theology had become respectable again. He
is excellent on the elder James, whose lack of system, whose principled
defiance of orthodox Swedenborgianism, he rightly makes much of,
and whose philosophy he amusingly describes as "a sort of cosmic
growl." He observes that the "existential" (or perhaps merely hectic)
nature of the nineteenth-century flowering made a logical development
of ideas unthinkable. The most anyone could contribute in that atmo–
sphere was a cluster of two or three ideas: the usual quota, for all
practical purposes, was one. We let the associations of words carry us
away when we imagine James another Swedenborg or Brownson another
Augustine. In purely
intellectual
terms, the dialogue between Fallen and
Adamic man was as stark as the social world that begot it; its interest
lies in its literary energy. Far from being sardonic bystanders, the great
writers were up to their eyes in theological hot water-but only up
to their eyes. We enjoy them more now because of the superior momen–
tum of art itself.
Mr. Lewis is also interesting on Parker, Bushnell, Parkman, Charles
Brockden Brown, and a certain Robert Montgomery Bird. His relative
ease with the minor writers shows a greater promise of growth than
one would suspect from sampling only the high points of his argument.
R. W. Flint
