To George Washburne Howgate
C/o Brown Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall
London, S.W.1
Rome. May 31, 1933
[M]an is an animal before he is a spirit, and can be a spirit only because he is alive, i.e. an animal. The nature of the human animal, however, is to be intelligent, to be speculative; and hence the vocation to transcend the conditions of his existence in his thought and worship.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Collection of Mrs. George W. Howgate.