The fourth Cambridge Review continues its valiant search for a point of view. Having fearlessly maintained for three issues that a point of view was necessary, the editors now conclude that it is not only necessary but possible.

For those who struggle through the editorial to discover what the possibility amounts to, it becomes clear that perhaps a prerequisite to a point of view should be clarity of expression. Unfortunately, a good deal of confusion, and indeed ill will, is inspired by pompous ambiguity. Although the editorial could be more clearly expressed, this is not to say that some worthwhile ideas are not detectable. In fact these ideas, as well as the rest of the material in the current issue, go a long way toward answering two important questions that were posed at the review's appearance: 1) whether the magazine has put forward more than a miscellaneous assortment of writing and 2) whether it has created an organ which will express a distinct and significant element of thought at the University.

In answer to the first question it seems that the fiction and poetry are hardly more than a miscellaneous assortment of writing, and at that not particularly unusual. Gerald Gillespie's story might have appeared in the Advocate, as could have D. J. Hughes' poem, Mallarme at Tournon. In terms of quality, the poetry in the current issue is rather unrewarding, especially compared with the last issue which included Allen Grossman, Stephen Booth and Gregory Corso. Canticle for Simonetta by Richard Sewell is uneven, at times forced, and fails to achieve an essential opposition. What is left is a good idea unsuccessfully worked out and one or two lines like "Beauty alone is less than life should wear."

The fiction achieves a higher level. Paul Goodman's play Abraham and Isaac, while it does not deepen or alter our basic understanding of the biblical situation in the fashion of Kierkergaard's Fear and Trembling, does retell the story with poetic insight into the man of faith's process of willing. Also colorful bits of Hebraic philosophy enrich our understanding of the chracters and their outlook on life.

In conceivably the best undergraduate story published so far this fall, Gerald Gillespie competently unravels the mysterious adventures of "the mighty and fabulous Alphonso Fitzpatrick." The Kafkacsque plight of the hero is overcome with fancy and humor.

In addition to the creative writing, the magazine does develop a point of view in the articles and editorials. In the first issue an attack was made on the irresponsibility of the individual to himself. Even when returning to self, it was maintained he preferred to remain attached to objects or institutions. Only by returning to self alone we were told could energy be created for thought and life. The current issue focuses on the problems of autonomous existence and the dangers of rationalism to creativity. John Hurkan, in an article entitled To the End of Thought, sets out to explain our "grotesque underestimation of the true profundity of Communist thought" and finishes by making a severe attack on modern rationalism. He believes that Communism can be rejected only on emotional grounds and not rational ones, since the "Communist state is only the abstract social expression of the actual or potential situation inside each rationalist . . ."

Negativism, explained by Hurkan as the culmination of rationalism, is taken up in Paul Tillich's article, Beyond the Dilemma of Our Period, as the major predicament of the middle of the twentieth century. It leaves the autonomous man in the age of science, without spiritual substance. Many individuals in search for a "fountain of meaning" are led toward authoritarianism. Tillich warns against taking preliminary realities as ultimates. He offers instead the Christian's attitude of waiting.

The power of rationalism to destroy, brought out by Hurkan and Tillich, has awakened in the editors grave doubts about intellectual activity and the function of the University. They claim the University has no real commitment "to the demands of the creative act" and that by having no particular point of view, or rather by allowing so many, what is created becomes no more important than what destroys it. Thus i.e. is not merely an attempt to formulate another point of view or to criticize, but an attempt towards an integrated artistic and scientific approach to the "new reality" created by science and rationalism. It would seem, however, that this approach is still too vague and undefined to arouse more than sympathetic curiosity from University.