Benjamin Rush: philosopher of the American Revolution, from Trans. Amer. philosoph. Soc

DONALD J. D'ELIA, Benjamin Rush: philosopher of the American Revolution, from Trans. Amer. philosoph. Soc., 1974, New Series, vol. 64, part 5, 4to, pp. 113, $5.00. Rush is remembered for his medical activities and his contribution as a revolutionary patriot to the genesis of America. About the second of these we know less, and Professor D'Elia, an historian, now provides a scholarly analysis of it. By so doing he supplements the earlier studies of H. G. Good (1918), N. G. Goodman (1934), Shryock (1945-1946), George Corner (1948 -the autobiography) and L. H. Butterfield (1951 the letters). He is able to show that Rush was indeed an outstanding philosophical exponent of the American Revolution. His revolutionary mission was basically Christian, and its uniqueness was his belief that revolution and Christianity were not incompatible. For him the Revolution was in fact an episode leading to a new utopian order in which Christianity could flourish among free men. His great achievement was that his revolutionary ideology revealed more originality than that of other contemporary American leaders. This new work adds not only fresh interpretations of Rush, but also of the Revolution, which we commemorated last year.