To Horace Meyer Kallen
Colonial Club
Cambridge, Massachusetts. January 10, 1908
London and Toynbee Hall will make you ultra-socialistic. As I am a socialist myself, I have no objection to that in theory; but in practice—let me warn you—I don’t like other socialists, and in the case of Molière’s Misanthrope whose opinions were blamed by himself, so soon as he heard them from other people. But that, while it may raise a laugh at his expense or at mine, is really a proof of honesty on our part: for in socialism, as in logic, the intent is all. And a man may be a socialist, like Plato, for the love of aristocracy and to spread a greater pedestal for the perfect man, or he may be a socialist out of pity and vicarious ambition for the common man. In the ideal, at least, we should begin by cleansing the inside of the cup.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book One, [1868]-1909. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati OH