Limits and Renewals is a trilogy based on the Stanton Lectures in the Philosophy of Religion delivered at the University of Cambridge in 1986-8. In this, the second volume, Professor Clark attempts to restate a traditional philosophy of mind, drawing upon philosophical and poetic resources that are often neglected in modern and post-modern thought, and emphasizing the moral and political implications of differing `philosophies of mind and value'. He presents a study of the soul as it has traditionally been conceived and as it can be understood through imaginative attention to our changing moods, beliefs, and fears. He argues that without that traditional concept we have little reason to believe that liberal values (rational thought and individual autonomy) are either possible or desirable. Particular topics discussed include the political context of identity claims, the uses of introspection, free will, `the beast within' as alien monster or necessary angel, the possibility of knowledge and the dangers of curiosity, the fear of death, the philoprogenitive gene, the political roots of the distinction between facts and values, and the body-mind problem. Notable features of the book are the author's citation of writers other than the conventionally philosophical (Augustine, Hopkins, Stapledon, and Weil), and the emphasis that he gives to traditions other than the self-consciously secular.

In this volume the author restates a traditional philosophy of mind, drawing on philosophical and poetical resources often neglected in modern and post-modern thought, and emphasizing the moral and political implications of differing `philosophies of mind and value'.

`A Parliament of Souls is a rich and important book. It is important because it tackles, with considerable force, basic anthropological and cosmological assumptions that tacitly inform moral views which are widely held in Western culture, are subversive of genuinely liberal values, and must be countered if Christian ethics is going to fall on anything but deaf ears. It is a rich book, partly because of the range of material from which Professor Clark characteristically draws.' Studies in Christian Ethics