Book Reviews : The Canadian General Election of 1957. By JOHN MEISEL. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. Pp. ix, 313. $6.50.)
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/106591296401700127 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | Dean E. McHenry |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
149
refuse
to
honor
the
context
of
revealed
religion
within
which
all
three
Medieval
communities
dwelt.
Nevertheless,
some
of
the
writers
show
a
surprising
vitality,
and
some
of
the
questions
asked
are
as
persistent
today
as
they
were
then;
we
can
choose,
as
some
have,
to
ignore
them
as
irrelevant,
but
it
would
be
sheer
dogmatism
to
fore-
close
their
consideration.
There
are
more
than
a
few
areas
in
the
world
even
now
where
large
populations
are
still
conformed
to
these
medieval
doctrines,
and
they
may
have
to
be
reckoned
with.
At
first
glance
it
is
the
samenesses
of
the
Muslim,
Jewish,
and
Christian
philoso-
phies
which
stand
out
-
most
plainly
in
the
common
context
of
a
revealed
mono-
theistic
faith,
and
the
almost
total
homage
to
the
ancient
Greeks.
But
there
were
deviationists
and
radicals
in
those
days,
too,
albeit
the
range
of
their
dissent
would
seem
to
us
now
narrowly
confined.
Lerner
and
Mahdi
find
two
broad
schools,
as
respecting
political
matters,
within
each
of
the
three
faiths:
the
political
philoso-
phers
as
such,
who
claimed
for
their
principles
an
intellectual
priority
and
autonomy,
as
opposed
to
the
political
theologians,
who
were
concerned
to
subordinate
all
of
mundane
affairs
to
the
primacy
of
religious
revelation.
The
Christian
faith,
alone
among
the
three,
possessed
an
institutional
Church
with
the
full
panoply
of
organiza-
tion,
dogma,
and
coercive
power;
here,
inevitably,
theology
was
made
paramount,
and
philosophic
dissent
punished
as
heresy.
It
was
a
different
matter
among
the
Muslim
and
Jewish
communities,
where
an
all-embracing
divine
Law,
as
distin-
guished
from
sacred
doctrine,
prevailed.
Here
the
political
philosopher
served
chiefly
as
interpreter
and
elaborator
of
the
Law,
deducing
from
its
premises
an
elaborate
set
of
rules
to
guide
public life
-
a
juristic,
rather
than
an
ecclesiastical,
function.
The
latitude
permitted
to
speculation
and
advocacy
was,
accordingly,
much
greater,
so
that
a
hundred
flowers
could
come
to
bloom
and
a
hundred
schools
of
thought
contend.
Universality
was
eschewed,
but
so
was
heresy.
The
philosophers
of
all
three
Medieval
faiths
were
united,
as
the
editors
observe,
&dquo;in
maintaining
the
superiority
of
theory
to
practice
and
in
regarding
man’s
ultimate
end
as
the
study
of
divine,
rather
than
merely
human,
things.&dquo;
No
brief
statement
could
suggest
more
plainly
how
far
we
have
progressed
since
then.
San
Francisco
State
College
LOUIS
WASSERMAN
The
Canadian
General
Election
of
1957.
By
JOHN
MEISEL.
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
1962.
Pp. ix, 313.
$6.50.)
This
is
the
first
comprehensive
study
of
a
Canadian
campaign;
it
concerns
a
pivotal
election,
the
first
for
John
Diefenbaker
as
Conservative
leader
and
the
last
for
Louis
St.
Laurent
as
Liberal
leader.
The
excellent
analysis
yields
a
good
picture
of
Canadian
national
politics
at
a
decisive
juncture.
Although
Canadian
parlia-
ments
have
relatively
long
lives,
this
was
the
first
of
four
national
elections
in
six
years,
all
but
one
( 1959 )
failing
to
yield
a
party
majority.
After
twenty-one
years
of
rule
the
Liberal
party
top
leadership
had
grown
old
and
complacent.
The
selection
of
John
Diefenbaker
as
leader
of
the
Conservative
party
gave
the
opposition
a
dynamic
element
it
had
lacked
for
a
generation
or
more.
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