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 284 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April next chapter, * A Swarm of Adversaries ', well describes the Jesuit attacks which followed, though with little success, and in some cases with serious injury to the reputation of those who made them. A relative calm succeeded. The third book of the dissertation is entitled * La Detente '. Its first chapter illustrates the prudence of the Holy See, and incidentally the careful study which the author has made of the original authorities at Rome and elsewhere. The attitude of the great body of the French bishops who at this time favoured the teaching of Port-Royal could not be dis- regarded by the papacy, and the result of the examination was that Rome did not condemn the work of Arnauld. The judgement of one of the examiners. Cardinal de Lugo, is given in full in Appendix iv. In the concluding chapter the author sums up his judgement of Jansenism. It is somewhat less favourable than his previous treatment of the subject would lead one to expect. The Jansenists, he says, were tares in the wheat which spoilt the promise of a rich spiritual harvest. He traces the errors of Jansenism to two causes. The first was their false conception of tradition. They failed to see that the church is the organ and interpreter of tradition. Just as the protestants (who rejected tradi- tion) had claimed the right to interpret Holy Scripture for themselves, so the Jansenists (who accepted tradition) had applied to it the protestant principle of free interpretation apart from the guidance of VEglise ensei- gnante. Secondly, they erred by insistence on the perpetuity and immuta- bility of the primitive church, which they regarded as leaving no place for development. They failed to recognize the right of the church to adapt ' les verites d'action aux aspirations nouvelles de la piete des fideles '. Instead, they held Augustine's teaching to be a perpetual, unchangeable rule of faith and practice. Their conception of the history of the church was static, not dynamic. How then is the spread of Jansenism during these ten years to be accounted for ? First, it owed its success to the elevation of its morality, and we may add, to its spiritual power exhibited in the lives of its adherents. Secondly, it was due to the overwhelming intellectual superiority of its champions, among whom Antoine Arnauld was pre- eminent. But is this all that need be said as to forces implicit in the movement ? If St. Cyran and Arnauld were taken captive by the gloomy system of doctrine wWch Jansen had too logically developed from Augus- tine's teaching on the Fall of Man and Divine Predestination, they had surely learnt something else from the author of the Confessions and of the Commentaries on St. John. The depths of penitence, the experiences of grace, the heights of aspiration of their self -chosen teacher had overflowed their hearts and made them effective preachers of the essential inwardness of the Christian faith, of the need of that ' renouvellement interieur ' which was the reproach and the glory of the Jansenist. E. R. Bernard, Bescheiden uit vreemde Archieven onUrent de groote Nederlandsche Zee- oorlogen, 1652-76. Verzameld door Dr. H. T. Colenbrander. 2 vols. {Rijksgeschiedkundige Publicatien.) (The Hague : Nijhoff, 1919.) These two volumes will be indispensable both for students of naval history and for any one who undertakes to write an account of the reign of