if he succeeds at all, a living truth; and that the God of the wilderness, if indeed he be the true God, shall show himself also as the keeper of the city....Faith has its glories; but the hard toil of critical reflection brings its own rewards. None prize the home-coming more than those who wander farthest."'38

In the essay on The Nature of Truth, Mr. Joachim does well the useful but preliminary work of discussing the data of the past. After passing in review the idea of truth as a correspondence, and the (doubtfully new) theory usually connected with the names of Mr. Russell and Mr. Moore, he passes on to the ideas of Truth that have held the field during the past generation. He ends, as Bradley (in the most brilliant book on Logic of modern days) says he does "in doubts and perplexities." But his conclusions do not concern us here. For our present purpose his book is remarkable as being viewed by the author himself as a preliminary to a future synthesis. It is confessedly an essay, whose object is to clear the ground for an adequate dealing with the present data of Philosophy. "If I am wrong," he says "I may at least have done some service, inasmuch as the failure of my present attempt may be used to warn those who like myself, are tempted to distrust the accepted maps....A positive result may be bought at too great a cost; for it may be due to an abstraction which neglects the 'sting' of the problems.' Even Mathematics, that most abstract Science, suffers a like danger: as we have been told there is danger in "premature abstractions.""

1939

Lastly, Mr. Moore claims to have written a "Prolegomena to all future Ethics." The more Aristotelian type of intellect, although aware that ὁ φιλόμυθος φιλοσοφός πώς ἐστιν," is but slightly moved by the accents of prophecy. And unfortunately for any New Gospel, the history of how the Pragmatists blew their trumpets unavailingly around the walls of Jericho, is too recent. Yet once again the object in view is important. The greater part of Principia Ethica is negative, being a criticism of Utilitarian and Idealist Ethics. Yet the criticism is avowedly made in view of a leading principle which is conceived to be the basis of a future synthesis. The issues pass much beyond the immediate province of Ethics, and, of course, the leading principle of a logical system, which could catholicize philosophy by making it an

38 World and the Individual, II, p. 4.

39 Joachim. loc. cit., p. 179.

40Bode. Introduction to the Differential Calculus.

41 Met. L. 2. 982 b.

explanation of all the data, would not be Ethical. And the author recognizes the problem, and the difficulty of its solution. "To search for 'unity' and 'system' at the expense of truth, is not, I take it, the proper business of philosophy, however universally it may have been the practice of philosophers.

1942

It is true indeed that the task is difficult for the data are innumerable to which attention has to be paid and yet "the philosopher is not a professor of things in general."" He is not a specialist in Science or History. These are his data, the conclusions of specialists. From these he moves. And the discipline of a real Philosophy, though sometimes arid, is always inspiring. It is true also that in some way every man is a Philosopher, for the data of experience are at all men's feet.

44

These conclusions therefore we may offer. The Philosophic Perspective to be gained from a history of Philosophy may be more truly a discipline of the intellect than any contemplation of Comtist or Haeckelist "clocks" marking the lapse of geological aeons. But if in the consideration of many systems the questions at issue remain external to the individual student, the result is not philosophical. It cannot be too often repeated: Studium Philosophiæ non est ad hoc quod sciatur quid homines senserint, sed qualiter se habeat veritas rerum.“ The mist of names and terms confuses the issue sometimes when one system only is studied; for the student catches the symbol and misses the meaning. There is greater danger when the subject-matter is more complex; and a study of Philosophical History from the outside has more than once been the true origin of the sceptical conclusion that because no system is final, no system is true. Or, as Ferrier put it, the maker of a new synthesis is met by a quotation from Scripture, as St. Peter said to Sapphira,-Lo! the feet of them that buried the preceding systems are at the door, and they shall carry thine out. Yet neither taunts nor admitted danger must deter us from discussing

42 Loc. cit. p. 222.

43Hobhouse. The Theory of Knowledge. initium.

St. Thomas. In comm. de Coelo et M. 1 lectio 22. The whole chapter is interesting in view of the usual false supposition that the schoolmen blindly followed authority, the ipse dixit of the past. Thus, following the first Historian of Philosophy, St. Thomas says: "Quando nos posuerimus opiniones aliorum,...inerit nobis quod non videamur condemnare dicta aliorum gratis, id est, sine debita ratione, sicut qui reprobant dicta aliorum solo odio, quod non convenit Philosophis, qui profitentur se inquisitores esse veritatis; oportet enim eos qui volunt sufficienter judicare de veritate quod non exhibeant seipsos sicut inimicos eorum de quorum dictis est judicandum, sed sicut arbitros et disquisitores pro utraque parte."

the whole of the data: and the many "philosophies" of History are but data for Philosophy.

And if, in fact, the progress of Philosophy has been made by lifting it above controversies of a past into the catholicity of a future, what hope is there now? What man will dare to face the infinite complexity of modern knowledge? And perhaps also it may be asked why any man should dare.

I answer that neither Religion nor Politics nor Art-nor anything of worth, however valuable it may be, can be given meaning without the hard discipline of Metaphysics. But on the other hand, no Metaphysics or Philosophy can be adequate which has to be imposed from without upon the facts, for the system must arise from the data. And if on the one hand it is dangerous to go out into the deserts of Philosophy, where the old formulas hold no sway; and if it is worse than dangerous to change a Philosophy as a fashion changes: yet again it is impossible to make any Philosophy "wear well" that was not cut to suit the wearer. In the Middle Ages, historians say, men made their clothes last longer, but that was because they were made of leather. If therefore there is to be a real Philosophy, and a real Metaphysics, the system must arise, according to the lessons of History, not from "prayer values" and "notional assents" but from the stern logic of a "methodus sic et non."

If,.on this basis, a system, that shall once more catholicize Philosophy, can arise, its only hope of reality lies in the ready acceptance of all that is proved true. And the prospects of its supporters are not inglorious. For in that cold and desert land in which lie the boundaries of the knowledge of to-day, the best men of every age are to be found. The man with clearer insight goes forth to prophesy in the desert, and few care to follow. But at least we have learnt from History that it is not among the generally accepted truths of the present that we shall find the higher Truth for which we strive, but in the lonely efforts of men who live upon the bitter desert-food of inacceptable work. To them and to their followers belong the future of Religion and Philosophy, as of everything that has value: kaλòv Tò ἆθλος καὶ ἡ ἐλπὶς μεγάλη. It may be indeed that some scapegoat will be found, some single man for all to execrate. Yet, for prophet or for scapegoat, though the desert is lonely-the air is bracing.

St. Edmund's College,

Old Hall, Ware, England.

CECIL DELISLE BURNS.

THE JEWISH MILITARY COLONY OF ELEPHANTINE UNDER THE PERSIANS

M. F. Lagrange, O. P.

The majority of tourists who visit Egypt desire to ascend the Nile as far as Assouan. The first cataract is only a short distance above this city which is located near the southern boundary of Egypt. A peculiar circumstance had in antiquity lent a kind of scientific notoriety to this city which was called by the Greeks Syene, this being a transformation of an Egyptian name. It enjoyed namely the unique distinction of being situated on the tropic of Cancer. Its well was famous throughout the Roman Empire, for on the day of the summer solstice it was lighted completely by the rays of the sun.'

Very near to this city-separated from it only by an arm of the Nile which in its narrowest portion is only 92 metres wide-is the island of Elephantine whose ever verdant groves announce to him who descends the Nile from Nubia the far famed fertility of Egypt. This favored spot attracted forcibly the notice of the French savants who accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian campaign.

"The verdure and freshness of its fields form such an agreeable contrast with the arid tracts of soil by which it is surrounded that it was surnamed the Flowery Isle and the Garden of the Tropics. The traveller whose curiostiy is dulled, and who is exhausted by wearisome journeys ....experiences a lively feeling of joy on coming to this island which looms up suddenly before his gaze like an enchanted spot in the midst of the blackish peaks and shining sands which occupy and fill the horizon."

Let us follow a little further this admirable Description de l'Egypte, all the more precious because Egypt was then, so to speak, a virgin soil.

"This island marks the beginning of cultivation at this extremity of Egypt, and it is at this point that the Nile makes its entrance into the country after flowing over the ledge of granite and the innumerable shoals of the last cataract. This point was in antiquity the Key of Egypt on the southern boundary. Under the reign of Psammetichus,' says Herodotus, 'there was a garrison at Elephantine against the Ethiopians,

'Tradunt in Syene oppido...solstitii die medio, nullam umbram jaci, puteumque ejus, experimenti gratia factum, totum illuminari. Pliny Hist. Nat. lib. II, c. 73. 'Description de l' Egypte, 2nd ed. tom. I, 175. This chapter is by Jomard.

at Daphnes of Pelusium against the Syrians and the Arabs and at Marea against the Lybians'. In the time also of this historian the Persians maintained a garrison at Elephantine. According to Strabo a Roman cohort was stationed there, and Pomponius Mela reckons Elephantine among the most famous cities of Egypt. 'Earum clarissimae procul e mari: Sais, Memphis, Syene, Bubastis, Elephantis et Thebae'. În relating the voyages of the great Germanicus, Tacitus calls this city one of the ancient bulwarks of the Roman Empire. 'Exin ventum Elephantinem ac Syenen, claustra olim romani imperii'. Finally under the Lower Empire there was a cohort stationed at Elephantine".

When Jomard thus grouped together' all that the ancients had said concerning the garrison of Elephantine, he did not suspectindeed no one could at that time-that the garrison of the Persian period in the time of Herodotus who states that he visited the place in his travels, or rather the military colony installed in the island by the Persians, was made up in great part of Jews. This somewhat sensational discovery was reserved for our own times.

The first clue was furnished by an Aramaic papyrus bought at Luxor and published by Mr. Euting. It is now in the Imperial Library of Strasburg whence the name "Strasburg papyrus" by which it is known. But although Mr. Euting diciphered it with his usual sagacity, he neither recognized the name Elephantine which it bore under its Egyptian form Yeb transcribed in Aramaic, nor the nationality of the authors of the papyrus. The credit of making this discovery is due to Clermont-Ganneau, whose interpretation has not been seriously modified though other documents bearing on the subject have since been discovered. His translation of the text which is very fragmentary, is as follows:

"that the Egyptians have rebelled, we have not abandoned (the side) of our lord, and nothing has been found wherewith to reproach us. In the 14th year of the reign of the King Darius, when our lord Archam was on his way to see the King, behold the evil deed of the priests of Khnoub. They made a conspiracy (?) in the fortified city of Elephantine with Wig (?) who was there (in capacity of) [....]; they gave him money and riches. There is a part of the [....] of the King that [he has....?] [....] of the fortress, and he has [...] a wall in the breach Herod. Hist. lib. II, c. 30. 'Strabo, Geogr. lib. xvii, p. 820. "Tacitus, Ann. lib. ii.

Notitia utraque dignit. imperii, p. 90.

'Description t. i, p. 177.

Notice sur un papyrus égypto-araméen...dans les Mémoirs présentés par divers savants a l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Premiere série. t. xi, p. 297-311. 'At present we know that this name should be read Widrang (177").

10 The untranslated name is 777 which appears also in other documents.