Abstract
The 1963 Aquinas Lecture will serve to link Weiss's recent The World of Art and Nine Basic Arts with his forthcoming treatment of religion. It also stands on its own merits as a fascinating examination of the relations between these two irreducibly "basic enterprises." Weiss begins by listing seven possible relations between religion and art: in terms of mutual independence, or the dominance, completion or qualification of one by the other. His most thorough examination, in the light of each of the basic arts, is reserved for the final relation, art religiously qualified, "religious art." In this form God is faced not directly, but rather as qualifying Existence. Memorable short excursuses include discussions of the various ways of adjusting to Existence and of the special character of religious language. In the final paragraph, Weiss says that other basic enterprises should be intersected by art and religion to yield new areas of activity.--W. L. M.