To Robert Traill Spence Lowell Jr.
Rome. March 1st 1951
I think reason, as applied to action, is a passion like any other, the desire to achieve harmony among all the impulses of the psyche, which desire is itself one of those impulses, like that of steadying yourself when you are walking along a narrow plank. Pure reason, if an intellectual and not a vital power, might just as well be pleased by toppling over as by walking straight. . . . If we reject order we reject health, distinction, and beauty, as well as peace of mind.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: The Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA