Enlightened’ Error

ficient? Isn’t it equally essential to limit the union leaders’ absolute authority to determine their own membership, which, coupled with their statutory right to bargain exclusively for all employees in the unit, confers on labor unions a power hitherto characteristic of sovereignty alone? And finally, perhaps most important of all, where shall we find the men and women who will administer the law faithfully and impartially, and who will be motivated solely by a desire for justice?

In the pages of most school history books we (and the innocent young) are still shown a steady march of human progress, and invited to applaud as society becomes ever more rational, scientific, democratic and Liberal. A high point in this glad story is generally the French Revolution (in spite of some regrettable excesses accompanying it) and the Age of Enlightenment, which finally brought mankind out of medieval darkness into the sunny uplands of the modern world. That age deserves our applause, for during it most of our favorite ideas were born or at least disseminated. In a series of lectures, now supplemented and published as The Brave New World of the Enlightenment, Mr. Louis T. Bredvold discusses the philosophers and theories of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe and considers their lasting influence. But he begins by warning his audience that he does not propose to join the familiar chorus of praise and gratitude.

AL

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Anthony Lejeune

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ficient? Isn’t it equally essential to limit the union leaders’ absolute authority to determine their own membership, which, coupled with their statutory right to bargain exclusively for all employees in the unit, confers on labor unions a power hitherto characteristic of sovereignty alone? And finally, perhaps most important of all, where shall we find the men and women who will administer the law faithfully and impartially, and who will be motivated solely by a desire for justice?

In the pages of most school history books we (and the innocent young) are still shown a steady march of human progress, and invited to applaud as society becomes ever more rational, scientific, democratic and Liberal. A high point in this glad story is generally the French Revolution (in spite of some regrettable excesses accompanying it) and the Age of Enlightenment, which finally brought mankind out of medieval darkness into the sunny uplands of the modern world. That age deserves our applause, for during it most of our favorite ideas were born or at least disseminated. In a series of lectures, now supplemented and published as The Brave New World of the Enlightenment, Mr. Louis T. Bredvold discusses the philosophers and theories of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century Europe and considers their lasting influence. But he begins by warning his audience that he does not propose to join the familiar chorus of praise and gratitude.