Ever since the liberation of Greece over a century ago, the central issues in Greek public life have been the political unification of all Greek-speaking peoples, questions of domestic, social and economic policy, and the elaboration of a satisfactory constitutional regime.

Since Greece received at the time of its liberation only a small share of the lands which it considered to be Greek, its foreign policy has always had this goal: the unification under the political sovereignty of the national state of all the territories in the Eastern Mediterranean region where Greek-speaking inhabitants predominate. By the acquisition of the Ionian Islands in 1863, Thessaly in 1881, and Crete, die Aegean Islands, Southern Epirus and Southern Macedonia in 1913, the greater part of this task had been accomplished on the eve of the first World War.

Although at the end of the seventeenth century men were shifting their political terminology from the spiritual to the secular, from God to nature, they still invoked the absolutes of history, law, and scripture. They did not lightly overturn their monarch, but when the necessity for such action arose they sought absolution in concepts which the most rigorous and learned mediaeval theologian would have understood. They appealed to the law of nature but they meant the law of God; and the shift involved no betrayal of absolute standards, no withdrawal from the same ethical doctrines that had nourished their forebears. The time was soon to come when secular phrases expressed a secular outlook, but in 1689 they continued to cover the religious convictions of centuries. As soon as the bars were down and men grappled in hectic controversy, the secular side of their politics diminished and the ethical and spiritual aspects became pronounced.

Pere De Lubac's volume, now almost two years old, has only within the past year received the attention it deserves. However, the prolonged silence of theologians is perhaps the most significant tribute that can be paid to one of the most remarkable books of our era. For the almost overwhelming array of erudition massed by Pere de Lubac, the extensiveness of his treatment, and the revolutionary aspects of his conclusions demand long periods of uninterrupted reading, reflection and research, before the theme of the book can be grasped in all its richness, and before a solid and fair evaluation can be made.

The popular uprising of the March Days of 1848 in Berlin, superficially viewed, remained an episode, and the men who were fighting for progress along various lines failed, and were bound to fail, in their aims. The German revolution, said Friedrich Engels in his instructive articles of 1851–52 (which he published in America above the signature of Karl Marx), was a necessity, but its temporary suppression was similarly unavoidable. We shall still have to substantiate this, but must turn our gaze first upon the Berlin revolution, and upon the positive comment which it may offer for our contemporary historical situation. Yet for this too it is necessary to search somewhat deeper.

We must set before ourselves today more sharply than before, the problem of critical alternatives in the history of Germany, in order to gain a deeper insight into the infinitely complex web of her dark destiny. The natural task of Germany in the nineteenth century was not only to achieve unification, but also to trasmute the existing authoritarian state (Obrigkeitsstadt) into commonwealth (Gemeinschaftsstaat). To that end, the monarchial-authoritarian structure had to be made elastic—if possible, through peaceful reform—so that the result would be an active and effective participation of all strata of society in the life of the state.

The rationalist is the acknowledged enemy of the spirit. The enmity is notably murderous when the object is the mind that has been scripturalized, the mind that draws its sources of value and discernment and power out of the energy of the Old and New Testaments, the mind that, refusing to show cause or prove or analyze, delivers judgment and damnation with the utmost conviction, the conviction of prophetic vision, of spiritual intuition. The system-maker, inveterately hunting after a coherent method or formulation, will find none; rather he may be expected to find only a violent assertiveness indifferent to all pattern and organization. So he may cry, “Fraud!” or “Fool!” Or if he, in his pure objectivity, has to respect the visionary's evident belief in his task, he may, subsequently, summon the psycho-analyst, who, at a loss for any other explanation, may attribute the whole outpouring of the prophet's soul to a neurotic condition. But this is, I think, a cheap evasion of the responsibility of any serious examiner.