To Arthur Davison Ficke
3 Prescott Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts. October 24, 1910
To my unilluminated mind it seems impossible that mankind should all be free, in any full sense of this word. They cannot be free if they don’t exist; they can’t exist, if they don’t eat; and they can’t eat, if they don’t work. But to have to work, even if not to overwork, at definite tasks, hours, and places, is not freedom. It is compulsion, and living willy-nilly in a once-determined groove.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Two, 1910-1920. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven CT