Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects (The Works of Cardinal Newman Birmingham Oratory Millennium)

"Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, volume VII in The Works of Cardinal Newman: Birmingham Oratory Millennium Edition series, is a collection of six articles, which were written between 1835, after the publication of The Arians of the Fourth Century, and 1866, when, as a Roman Catholic, Newman contributed a review to the Jesuit periodical The Month. Two of these articles appeared as Tracts for the Times; two are a series of letters to a newspaper. The letters discuss the nature of scientific knowledge as a quasi-substitute for faith, and the nature of the balance between executive power and democratic constraints. The opening essay, in the imaginary setting of the Roman forum, is a discussion between three friends of the nature of the via media, its shortcomings, and how it can be made to work. This book has been unavailable for many years and contains some of Newman's best and most amusing writing, scattered throughout with historical and literary references, which have been extensively researched for the modern reader in this edition." -- Publisher's description.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Philosophy. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.