war against the secessionist Americanrnpopulation. Such total war is, Livingstonrnclaims, “possible only among ‘civilized’rnnations. It is shaped and legitimated byrnan act of reflection, a way of thinkingrnabout the world whereby an entire peoplernbecomes the enemy.” Hence “Lincoln’srnscorched earth policy and demandrnfor unconditional surrender exhibited arnnew frame of mind that only eighty yearsrnlater would reveal itself in the terrorrnbombing of Dresden.”rn”Part Two; Humean Intimadons”rnconsists of four chapters in which Livingstonrnengages in “what Oakeshottrncalled ‘the pursuit of inhmations.'” Thernfirst of these chapters finds inspirafion inrnHume as “a virtual Founding Father.”rnLivingston contrasts the compact withrnthe nationalist theory of America’srnfounding. The former holds that thernConstitution was a compact betweenrnsovereign states, delegating enumeratedrnpowers to a minimum central government;rnthe latter agrees with Lincoln inrnhis justification for coercing the Confederaternstates back into the Union: “ThernUnion is older than any of the States,rnand, in fact, it created them as states.”rnConstrued as an historical proposition,rnthis statement is, as Livingston insists,rnsimply false. For the Continental Congressrnwas as much a congress of sovereignrnstates as the Congress of Vienna.rnThe second chapter in Part Two,rn”The Right of Resistance: A HumeanrnFree State versus a Modern ConsolidatedrnLeviathan,” examines Hume’s writingsrnin the light of two doctrines essentialrnto the identity of the modern state: therntheory of sovereignty and the organicrntheory of the state. Livingston concludesrnthat no support is to be found there for eitherrnof these essential doctrines and derivesrnfrom this want of support a strongrnpresumption against the modern state inrnHume’s thought.rnThe first thing to notice about thernmodern state is its disposition to centralizernand to consolidate smaller social andrnpolitical units into a larger whole. Withrnconsolidation has come an increase inrnthe state’s power to command the resources,rnmaterial and human, within itsrnterritory. (The very idea of having “humanrnresources” to exploit is a gift thernmodern state has seen fit to lavish uponrnitself) One measure of this power,rnwhich marks a fundamental differencernbetween the modern state and its premodernrncounterpart, is the authority tornimpose both income taxation and universalrnconscription. Livingston pointsrnout that it is this enormous increase ofrnstate power—to some extent foreseen byrnHume and the Old Whigs—which hasrnmade possible in our century unprecedentedlyrndestructive wars between individualrnstates as well as massacres, similarlyrnunprecedented in their extent, of theirrnown subjects by controllers of states.rnThe third chapter of Part Two, “ThernRight of Resistance: Secession and thernModern State,” while perhaps the mostrnfreshly stimulating, has the least directrnconnection with the ideas of Hume.rnFor, as Livingston notices.rnSecession does not appear as arnuniquely political concept untilrnthe idea of the modern state containsrnan ethic of self-governmentrn(which may easily lead to a demandrnfor secession) and a prohibitionrnagainst secession—for a modernrnstate is one and indivisible.rnThe final chapter, “Preserving One’srnHumanity in the First Philosophic Age,”rncontains sections on “Hume and Vico”rnas well as “Hume and Hegel.”rnIt is, by the way, most misleading to assertrnthat “the European Union has avoidedrnconfronting the question of secession,”rnas the promoters of that enterprisernare forever insisting that every step in thernconstruction of their centralized and allcontrollingrnEuropean superstate is irreversible.rnAntony Flew is professor emeritus at thernUniversity of Reading. He has previouslyrnpublished another, different review of thisrnbook in the International PhilosophicalrnQuarterly.rnInvaders of Our Landrnby Charles Edward EatonrnThe Selected Poems of Wendell Berryrnby Wendell BerryrnWashington, D.C.: Counterpoint;rn178 pp., $20.00rnWendell Berry is, without doubt,rnthe poetic star of environmentalism.rnI do not know of any other poet ofrnhis stature in the present or past who hasrntaken his stand, as the Agrarians said theyrndid, and stood by it so steadfastly into hisrn60’s. In fact, his farmer-poet representationrnof himself may be his most impressiverncreation, perhaps more than anythingrnelse the source of the attention hernhas received. Not a bad thing for such arnworthy cause. But what about the poetry?rnIn the first sentence of “The ApplernTree,” the first poem in Selected Poems,rnhe refers to “the essential prose inrnthings,” and we know immediately thatrnhe is not going to proceed along the linesrnof that great sophisticate, WallacernStevens, who insisted on “the essentialrngaudiness of poetry.” An approximationrnof this dichotomy runs through Americanrnprose and poetry, the two sides knittingrnback and forth, correcting each other’srnexcesses, and we can be grateful thatrnthe fabric of American meaning is so variedrnand rich in texture and design.rnSpecifically, there are 100 poems inrnSelected Poems, taken from nine ofrnBerry’s 14 listed books of poetry. To me,rnthe long poems are the best, for, withrnsome exceptions, the short ones do notrngive us “the immortal wound fromrnwhich you will never recover,” as RobertrnFrost said, and did in such classics asrn”Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Fire andrnIce,” and “Stopping by Woods on arnSnowy Evening.”rnBerry hits his stride with “The Designrnof a House” and the sequence “WindowrnPoems,” a real tour de force and one ofrnmy favorite pieces in the collection. It isrna perfect subject for a careful observerrnlike Berry: “This is the mind’s eye, /rnWendell’s window. . . . The countryrnopens to the sky / the eye purified amongrnhard facts. . . . The window is a form / ofrnconsciousness, pattern /of formed sense /rnthrough which to look / into the wild /rnthat is a pattern too, / but dark and flowing.rn. . . The window becomes a part / ofrnhis mind’s history, the entrance / of daysrninto it.. .. The window is a fragment / ofrnthe world suspended in the world, thernknown / adrift in mystery, / and now therngreen / rises. The window has an edge /rnthat is celestial, / where the eyes are surpassed.”rnI respond to these poems as a kind ofrnhymn to the earth, all the deeper for beingrnlimited and focused by how muchrnone man at any given time can see fromrnhis window—an intense “fragment.” Inrna way, this sequence is also a paradigm ofrnhis poetry: Every window looks out on arn30/CHRONICLESrnrnrn