In "The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century philosophers" Professors Becker has attempted "to show that the underlying preconceptions of eighteenth-century though were still allowance made for certain important alterations in the bias, essentially the same as those of the thirteenth century." It is an arresting thesis and it is skillfully handled.

Although the book centers on the "underlying preconceptions of eighteenth century thought" It concludes an illuminating, though necessarily sketchy comparison of the "climates of opinion" of the Middle Ages, the Age of the French Revolution, and today. In making this comparison Professor Becker suggests a whole philosophy of history. "Are we to suppose that the Russian Revolution of the twentieth century, like the French Revolution of the eighteenth, is but another stage in the progress of mankind toward perfection? Or should we think, with Marcus Aurelius, that the man of forty years if he have a grain of sense, . . . has been all that has been and shall be'?" Professor Becker refuses to commit himself explicitly, but he is obviously inclined to agree with the Roman Emperor.

A lineal descendant of Thrasymachus, of Philo in Hume's "Dialogues," and of Bertrand Russell in his most willfully tough-minded moods, Professor Becker works within the limitations of the naturalistic philosophy. This fact has led him into a fundamental error--or at least a fundamental omission. "Obviously the disciples of the Newtonian philosophy had not ceased to worship. . . having denatured God, they deified nature." "The eighteenth century Philosophers, like the medieval scholastics, held fast to a revealed body of knowledge. . ." "The ideas (Dderot's) are essentially Christian .!): for the worship of God, Diderot has substituted respect for posterity; for the hopes of immortality in heaven, the hope of living in the memory of future generations." In insisting on the faith of the notoriously skeptical Philosophers and in ringing the changes on the religious character of their humanitarian philosophy, Professor Becker, has helped to correct a popular fallacy about the age of Voltaire, But in assimilating the religion of nature and humanity with Christianity almost to the point of identification, he has fallen into the error common to 'scientific' history of sociology, for which religion is religion (that is, simply one of the colossal self-delusions of the race). This misconception is, of course, one of the modern errors against which Professor Babbitt has carried on a life-long crusade.

Apart from the basic misapprehension involved in its thesis. "The Heavenly city" is an excellent book. It is delightful to find a scholarly work on a profound subject written with such complete absence of pedantry. Professor Becker carries his learning lightly and the evident relish with which his sophisticated intellect exposes the "rationalizations" and illusions of the men who "demolished the Heavenly City of St. Augustine only to rebuild it with more up-to-date materials" gives a fine zest to his book. "The Heavenly City" is a treasure-chest for the student of the Revolution and it ought not to be missed by anyone who is interested in the development of "climates of opinion"