For Aristotle, both desire and knowledge lead to action. Actions that spring from a desire must follow true discourse. If action do not follow a sound syllogism, then they are done in haste. Thus, a prudent action is guided by logos, the principle of intelligence. The perfect Aristotelian man possesses logos in all his actions. He desires true acts and knows good acts.

St. Thomas complements the virtue theory of Aristotle by saying that prudence involves true reason and the rightness of appetite. The prudent person is moved by his appetites for a good reason, and an imprudent person seeks the object of his appetites for poor reasons. A virtuous person seeks to have his appetites governed or harnessed by reason because actions stem from desire, and desire stems from love. But love is brought about by knowledge. Therefore, just as effects are inferior to their causes, human acts are subordinate to reason. For this reason, St. Thomas writes that a person who allows his appetites to guide his actions is carnally prudent (S.T., II-II, p. 55, a. 2, ad 2m).

For St. Thomas, there are six subjective parts in prudence. These parts are the steps the intellect and will go through on their way toward a good object. First, the intellect apprehends the good. Second, the will is inclined or moves toward the apprehended good and consents. Third, the intellect performs a deliberation process to consider the various means and options to obtain the good. Fourth, the will chooses one of the means which appear to the intellect to be the most reasonable. Fifth, the intellect commands the will to actualize the potential of the chosen means toward the good. And sixth, the will executes in order to contact and rest in the enjoyment found in the possession of the good that was first perceived by the intellect.

This is a long process that occurs within the human psyche within a matter of seconds. Mature human adults have gone through these steps so many times in their lives that only after careful reflection can the six steps be detected. They are best summarized by: apprehension, consent, deliberation, choice, command, and execution.

Knowing the parts of prudence is necessary for the understanding of imprudence and sin. Sin is an act that is in discord with reason or natural law. St. Thomas writes, "No sin can take place unless there be a failure in an act of the directing reason. And this belongs to imprudence" S.T. II-II, p. 53, a. 2). A sinful, imprudent act is one that skips over one of the parts of prudence. St. Thomas has named four actions that discard one of the prudent steps in action.

First, an action that abandons deliberation is precipitous, which is an action that does not look ahead, but moves in haste or with rashness. Second, an inconsiderate action is one that is unable to choose the most reasonable means toward its goal. Here the fourth part of prudence, choice, is handicapped and our of commission. Another name for this action is thoughtlessness. The third kind of action ignores the fifth step of prudence, command, and prevents a person from actualizing the means chosen to obtain a certain good. These types of action are called inconstant and erratic. The last kind of imprudent action is negligence, which abandons steps three, four and five in the acts of the will. One who is negligent does not deliberate about the various possibilities, fails to make a choice concerning a possibility, and does not command the will to take action. Hence, a person who neglects his or her homework does not find, pick and do a reasonable means to turn in the assignments.

What causes imprudence? For Aristotle, pleasure corrupts the prudential decision making process. But for St. Thomas, it is something much more specific than pleasure. Lust is the major enemy of prudence and sends its four bandits of precipitation, thoughtlessness, inconstancy and negligence to attack the various parts behind every human act. The imprudent person is a deficient lover: "imprudence is a failure of love (O'Neil, 1955, 96)."

If imprudence stems from the corrupt desire of lust, then prudence must spring forth from love. Love moves the reason to discern. Discerning is prudence which in turn builds the existential structure by which a person can be united with singular goods as well as the ultimate good - God. The saw of the carpenter is like the moral person's will, and the carpenter's straight edge is like his ruled reason. Hence, before each action, especially before major, life-shattering decisions, we can choose to love most completely by stopping in our tracks in order to bend down and pick up the ruler of reason, the logos of Aristotle and the sound syllogism of Aquinas.

The moral person is a craftsperson who is the master of his actions. He allows himself to go through the six steps of prudence, and wards off the impulse of impatience. Plus, he orders his love by choosing objects that are good and reasonably fit. In this way a disordered love, or lust, is incapable of sending out its troops to interfere with the motions of discourse. The prudent person takes time to be reasonable, and makes time to be loving.

This adventure for Deadlands: Hell on Earth is a tricky little number, full of surprises and twists that will keep players and Marshals alike amazed, right up till the end. A good beginning adventure , but also a nice change of scenery for experienced posses.

This book is just so full of useful information and details. It has a lot of problems for which most of the solutions are supplied. Man, I love differential manifolds after spending some quality time with this book.

Charles Wiltse's the Jeffersonian Tradition in American Democracy is a very good account of the intellectual background and philosophy of Thomas Jefferson. Wiltse starts out with the intellectual background for Enlightenment thought in Great Britian and France. It is shown how the philosophy of republicanism and libertarian thought progressed from the mid 17th century to the time of Jefferson.

Next Jefferson's intellectual background is explored. Locke, Bacon, Newton, Sidney, and Lord Kames are shown to be the main influences on our greatest founder. It then moves to Jefferson's progressive philosophy of liberty and republican thought. Public education, religious freedom, the abolition of slavery, ending primogenture and entail, and a republican constitution consume the mind of Jefferson.

Wiltse also goes into Jefferson's philosophy for "ward republics",a form of grass roots democracy. He details Jefferson's passion for ward republics to be the "salvation of the republic" as he called it. The main thing that makes this work so good id that it lacks the anti-intellectual postmodern "deconstruction" of Jefferson. No political correctness or extreme "presentism" viewpoint. A really good book for a Jeffersonian education.

Can't wait to see this one. Lilla and Dworkin is like a collaboration between Ken Vandermark and Wynton Marsalis.

A through approach and vivid presentation, RECOMMENDABLE

What Beatrice was to Dante Thomas Howard is to readers of Charles Williams, whose novels are not exactly hell to read, but some may yet find them somewhat tough going. It's a pity, because as with the Latin Mass, if we only knew what we were missing we would clamor for more. Thankfully Ignatius Press has reprinted this book by Thomas Howard so that we do have a guide through this marvelous world. In this book, originally published by Oxford Press, Thomas Howard starts with the party line that Williams is a bad writer, and then shows us why he's a very good one (Thomas Howard can be very sneaky). He explains why CW can't be considered a "major" writer, and maybe not even a good candidate for a minor one, but by the end of the book one is convinced that the label "major" is too small to fit Charles Williams.

Howard is similarly dismissive of his own writing in this book, even though it stands as one of his best (his best to date, in my opinion, is On Being Catholic). He suggests the reader not even read the whole book, but just jump around to the relevant parts for the Williams novel he/she is interested in. Here again, I must take exception and express a minority viewpoint. The book that does seem pieced together this way is Howard's The Achievement of C.S.Lewis, whereas The Novels of Charles Williams reads seamlessly and grippingly start to finish. Not that Howard's Lewis book is bad--the bit on Till We Have Faces is very good, as well as parts on the Silent Planet Trilogy. But it seems to me that the prefaces for these two books got switched.

Anyone venturing into a Williams novel for the first time might find the water, as it were, initially cold and uninviting, regardless how heartily the swimmers urge him or her to dive in. Howard is like a personal trainer, both preparing the reader and helping them stay in shape when, gripped with the strange madness that afflicts readers of Williams novels, they recklessly swim further and further from shore. Howard is obviously among the initiates, and the more dismissive he is of Willaims' standing as a writer, the more you want to read him. 'Nuff said. Dive in. The water's fine.

Reflections of South Carolina gives an excellent glimpse into all that is South Carolina. Photographs range from the beautiful beaches along the coast to college campuses and the biggest cities to the smallest counties throughout the state. The photographs by Robert Clark are exquisite and make you feel as if you are a part of them. You do not have to be a South Carolina native - I'm not!- to appeciate this book. Makes a wonderful gift to anyone who loves this state.

Evans is a fascinating man to listen to. He is a decorated veteran, but shuns the recognition he rightly deserves. He admits that some of his actions during the heat of combat "might have been foolhardy." Evans was not interested in medals, only in trying to keep his men alive. As Evans' Third Army Com mander, General George S. Patton remarked, "No one ever won a war by dying for his country. He won by making the other poor bastard die for his country."

Evans met several truly historical figures. First and foremost was Patton. After the first day of the Battle of Arracourt, Patton visited Evans' command post to commend him on a job well done. That was just the first of many encounters with General Patton. After hostilities ceased in 1945, Evans was assigned to a Prisoner of War camp near Landshut, Germany. There, while interrogating prisoners, he briefly met General Vlasov, another larger-than-life individual. Vlasov was a former White Russian officer who was convinced (some say coerced) to help the Nazis against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. Later, in Switzerland, Evans was able to get a glimpse of a compound full of Nazi war criminals, most notable of whom was Herman Goering.

Evans was also fortunate to have been able to participate in the design, testing and eventual combat deployment of the M18 "Hellcat" tank destroyer. The United States Army found that its antitank capabilities were woefully inadequate against the masses of German armor, so a new tank destroyer was desired. Evans, along with a handful of other armor officers from various posts around the US, was invited to Detroit to the Buick Division of General Motors, to offer suggestions for the design of this new vehicle. There are precious few times in a soldier's career that he is given the opportunity to impact upon the equipment he will use in the performance of his duty. Evans and these other officers seized the moment and helped to design one of the most effective combat vehicles ever. In ju! st a few short months the M18 went from the drawing board to the maneuver field and then the European Theater of Opera tions.

This is Thomas Grubb himself supplying up-dated information on my book. It is presently available through PRENTICE HALL, Inc., 240 Frisch Court, Paramus, NJ 07652 at l-800-766-849l (FAX: 20l-909-6275). It in listed there under Macmillan Library Reference/Schirmer. And I no longer teach at the Manhattan School. Since l985 I have been on the faculty of The Juilliard School and since l984 at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.