XXXll JAMES A. WEISHEIPL 



Humbert Kane on his sixtieth birthday, July 12, 1961. His 

 inspiring devotion to study, to teaching and to the Dominican 

 way of life deserve some recognition from his brethren and 

 friends besides the normal courtesies of academic and religious 

 life. This Festschrift is presented to him with warm affection, 

 deep respect and eternal gratitude. It is a token, indeed a very 

 small token, of our great esteem. Those who esteem Fr. Kane's 

 life-long work recognize his influence on the intellectual life 

 in the United States, both within and without the Dominican 

 Order. Those who have not had the privilege of knowing him 

 will find in this volume the fruits of much of his labor. 



William (Dean) Kane was born in La Grange, a suburb of 

 Chicago, on July 12, 1901. After completing Lyons Township 

 High School and attending Aquinas College in Columbus, he 

 entered the Order of Preachers in Somerset, Ohio, in 1920, and 

 took the religious name of Humbert. After the normal course 

 of studies he was ordained to the priesthood in Washington on 

 June 9, 1927. But while he was studying theology at the Do- 

 minican House of Studies in Washington, he studied pre- 

 medicine at the Catholic University of America (1923-26) and 

 medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine (1926- 

 28) in preparation for the Chinese missions. Successfully com- 

 pleting his Lectorate dissertation, " The Criterion of Philo- 

 sophical Truth," in 1928, he was sent to the Collegio Angelico 

 in Rome for two years graduate study in philosophy. His ex- 

 amination and dissertation on " Finality in Nature " obtained 

 for him the Doctorate of Philosophy summa cum laude in June 

 of 1930. His life thereafter was completely devoted to teach- 

 ing, and it is for this that he is best known. In thirty years of 

 teaching — biology, logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics and 

 theology — he has given much serious thought to the text of St. 

 Thomas and to modem problems. From 1933 until 1940 Fr. 

 Kane was Lector Primarius in the House of Philosophy at River 

 Forest, and from 1940 until 1948 he was Pro-Regent of Studies 

 for the newly created Province of St. Albert the Great. On 

 December 17, 1944, the River Forest studium was established 



