of some measure of reason, civility, andncommon sense to our politics after onenof the more dismal periods in Americannhistory. ccnChristopher Muldor is a criminologistnin Philadelphia.nSmashing ”UglynMonuments”nby David VicinanzonMortimer J. Adler: Ten PhilosophicalnMistakes; Macmillan; New York;n$12.95.nAdler begins his latest book with Aristotle’snadmonition: “The least initialndeviation from the truth is multipliednlater a thousandfold.” Adler concludesnwith a recommendation: “The recoverynof basic truths, long hidden from view,nwould eradicate errors that have suchndisastrous consequences in modernntimes.” For 10 delightfully lucid chaptersnin between, he uncovers and correctsnthe “initial deviations” that havengenerated the contemporary shortcircuitnin philosophical thinking.nConsider Locke’s postulate that ann”idea” is that which the individual apprehends,”ninstead oithat by which thenindividual apprehends some object.” Ifnwe take Locke’s theory seriously, thennthe bottle of wine between us on thenMOVING?nLET US KNOW BEFORE YOU GO.nTo assure uninterrupted delivery of Chroniclesnof Culture, please notify us in advance. Sendnthis form with the mailing label from yournlatest issue of Chronicles of Culture to: SubscriptionnDepartment, Chronicles of Culture, P.O.nBox 800, Rockford, Illinois 61105.nNAIVIE,nADDRESSnCITYnSTATE. .ZIPn24/CHRONICLES OF CULTUREndinner table is not real, but “an idea innour minds.” Locke did not even needncommon sense to discover his error; hencould have consulted Aquinas, who,ngood Dominican that he was, had demonstratednthat the wine was real, andnthat ontological teetotalism such asnLocke’s prohibited “the possibility ofnour having any knowledge of a realitynoutside . . . our own minds.” Still,nmany have taken Locke’s notion seriouslynand its tangled outgrowthsn— skepticism, subjectivism, andnsolipsism—prevail today.nConsider also the assertion ofnHobbes, Berkeley, and Hume that thenhuman mind is a mere “senseperceptor.”nAs a purely sensitive faculty,nAdler says, the mind would not havenany abstract ideas. Man could not apprehendnthe objects of mathematics,nnor conceive metaphysical objects suchnas God or the soul, nor converse aboutnsuch abstractions as liberty, justice, virtue,nand the infinite: “None of thesencan be perceived by the senses. None isna sensible particular.” But of coursenmen can conceive of such things (evennLocke conceded that “Brutes abstractnnot”); the intellect—the part of thenmind that does not simply receive andnreact to sensation—is one great attributenthat makes us different in kind, notnjust degree, from other animals. Nonetheless,nthe mistaken view of thenhuman mind persists, undermining individualnresponsibility and makingnhuman life less inviolable and—thenshame of the 20th century — morenexpendable.nIn correcting other mistakes, Adlernapplies special scrutiny to Hume andnKant, whose works represent oppositenfaces of the same error: the definition ofn”knowledge” as exclusively the productnof methodical investigation and probativendata. By this definition, philosophynand metaphysics are discounted as meren”opinion,” and “real knowledge” becomesnthe possession of specialists whonprogressively insulate their microcosmiensubjects from the corpus of knowledgenand the experience of the humannrace. Philosophy and the collective experiencenof mankind, Adler argues, ultimatelynare more essential to humannexistence than the germ-free bubble ofnthe “expert”; without them, we arenunable to understand everything elsenwe know, and the path to happiness andnwisdom lies dark and untraveled.nIn the latter half of the book, Adlernaddresses less esoteric mistakes, such asnthe “astounding, yet in our days widelynprevalent, denial of human nature.”nAdler wonders, too, how the humannrace survived long enough for Hobbes,nnnLocke, and Rousseau to invent then”state of nature” and “social contract”ntheories if the family and rudimentarynsociety are not “natural.”nAdler insists that the philosophicalnmistakes are simple ones and that theirnproliferation is the result of “culpablenignorance”:nThey are ugly monuments tonthe failure of education—nfailures due, on the one hand,nto corruption in the tradition ofnlearning and, on the othernhand, to an antagonisticnattitude toward or evenncontempt for the past, for thenachievements of those who havencome before.nThe solution is to reopen the philosophicalnclassics of pre-17th-centurynWestern civilization, which have answersnthat a shallow and dissipated contemporarynphilosophy cannot provide.nAdler is convinced that these landmarksnwill help us to undo the mistakes thatnpromote needless misery in modernntimes. ccnDavid Vicinanzo is a recent graduatenofFordham Law School.nIN FOCUSnTRUTH in GreennTrousersnby Brian MurraynEzra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear:nTheir Letters: 1909-1914; Edited bynOmar Pound and A. Walton Litz;nNew Directions; New York.nWhen the young American poet EzranPound arrived in London in the autumnnof 1908, he had considerablynmore on his mind than a tour of WestminsternAbbey and a boat ride down thenThames. He was determined to becomena noted poet, and—convinced that hisnown country was little more than ancultural slum—he had come to Englandnto launch his career. In London,nPound put in long hours: he wrotenincessantly and lectured often; hensought out all the right connections. Innlittle more than a year. Pound hadnmanaged to form friendships with suchnprominent literary figures as Elkin Mathews,nMaurice Hewlett, Ernest Rhys,nand William Butier Yeats.nPound was introduced to Yeats bynMrs. Olivia Shakespear, the wife of an’ prosperous London solicitor and an