To John W. Yolton
Via S. Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. August 20, 1951
You prefer my moral apprehensions to my scientific apprehension of morals in general, including my own morals; and so my naturalism seems to you to belittle all morality. It does, inevitably, belittle it in time and space; and in my personal opinion also in dynamic importance, since in my opinion all forces are inherently physical even when they carry ideal or passionate aims. But the prenatal history of morals, or all natural history, does not belittle morally any of its data. If you think so you are applying an economic criterion to vital facts whose value is intrinsic. It is because our modern world is obsessed with matter and trembling at its possible revolutions (attributed to moral magic) that it clings to that other cosmic point of view—proper to Judaism and to Platonism—that it is a moral aspiration or predestination that rules the world and that our efforts can accelerate that consummation.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Eight, 1948-1952. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Unknown