Category: LETTERS Page 68 of 274

To David Page
C/o Brown Shipley & Co. 123, Pall Mall, London, S.W.1
Rome. May 3, 1937

I am (strange as it may be nowadays) a naturalist in natural philosophy. I cannot conceive the existence of moral life, or of anything good, not rooted in some definite material organism, animal or social. On this point I agree with the historical materialism of Marx. I also agree with the theory of Fascism, in so far as this coincides with the politics of Plato and of antiquity in general. Society is not based on ideas, but on the material conditions of existence, such as agriculture and defence; virtue is moral health, and when genuine rests on the same foundations.

. . . Ideas may be said to govern the world, when they are simply descriptions of the course which events have naturally taken; but to imagine that the world is governed, or ought to be governed, by a special prophetic system of demands, arbitrarily imposed, would be fanatical. Liberalism is still fanaticism, watered down. It hates the natural passions and spontaneous organization of mankind; hates tradition, religion, and patriotism: not because it sees the element of illusion inseparable from these things, but because it has a superficial affection for a certain type of comfortable, safe, irresponsible existence, proper to the second generation of classes enriched by commerce: and this pleasant ideal, it expects to impose on all races and all ages for ever. That is an egregious silliness, which cannot be long-lived.

. . . I am not on principle a nationalist or “rightist” or adherent of any other party: but there are always sinister notions of some sort that need to be “righted” by some opposite notion.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937–1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To John W. Yolton
Via Santo Stefano Rotondo, 6
Rome. May 2, 1952

Argument has never been, in my opinion, a good method in philosophy, because I feel that real misunderstanding or difference in sentiment usually rests on hidden presuppositions or limitations that are irreconcilable, so that the superficial war of words irritates without leading to any agreement. Now in your difficulty with my way of putting things I suspect that there is less technical divergence between us than divergence in outlook upon the world. And I am a little surprised that you should attribute to official America today an ambition to prevent Russia from establishing labour-camps, etc. All that I should impute to American policy is that it fears the eventual spreading of Russian methods over the whole world. This is what the Russians mean to do, and gives a good reason for resisting, not for abolishing, them; which last, as far as I know, nobody intends.

It is what people intend or actually do that interests me, not what they think they or others ought to do. Therefore in my books, at least in the mature ones, I am not recommending a rational system of government but at most considering, somewhat playfully, what a rational system would be. And in considering this, I come upon the distinction between the needs and the demands of various human societies. The needs and the extent or possible means of satisfying them are known or discoverable by science. So medical science may prescribe for all persons the operations, cures, or diets that it discovers to conduce to health. And so, I say, economic science might discover how best territories may be exploited and manufactures produced, in so far as they are needed or prized. There should therefore be a rational universal control of trade, as of hygiene; and both involve safety for persons and their belongings. The police, communications and currency should be universal and international; and the limits of wages and profits in all economic matters should be equitably determined by economic science. There could therefore be no strikes, monopolies, labour-camps or capitalists, and a scientific communism would reign in most of the things that now cause conflicts in government and between nations. But the justification for this autocracy in the economic sphere would be that only the force majeure of nature imposed on mankind in their ignorance; whereas, imposed by doctors of science, it would prevent all avoidable distress and unjust distribution of burdens.

With this foundation laid in justice and necessity all races, nations, religions, and liberal arts would be allowed to form “moral societies” having, like “Churches” among us now, their special traditions and hierarchies and educational institutions. Each would have an official centre, as the Catholic Church has the Vatican, but need not have any extensive territory. I am always thinking of the East where great empires have always existed, controlling in a military and economic way a great variety of peoples, and preserving a willing respect for their customs. It does not occur to me to say whether cruel institutions should be suppressed from outside if odious to other peoples. Violence, in any case, would be impossible, since that could be exercised, in the name of Nature, only by the rational universal economic authorities, and all the “moral societies” would be unarmed. They would not be able to prevent rebels within their society to leave it; nor would they be compelled to unite or compromise with any other moral society. They might mingle as Jews, Moslems and Christians mingle in the East when they have a good impartial government, such as Alexander planned to establish and the Romans and in a measure the Moslems have sometimes carried on.

I suspect that you naturally think of “moral” passions as guiding governments and instigating wars. You expect “ideologies” to inspire parties, and parties to govern peoples. All that seems to me an anomaly. And it is not the intellectual or ideal interests invoked that really carry on the battle, but the agents, the party leaders, who have political and vain ambitions. Mohammed was a trader before he decided to be a Prophet, dictated to by the Archangel Gabriel; and it is already notorious that in Russia the governing clique lives luxuriously and plans “dominations” like so many madmen. It is human: and the gullibility of great crowds when preached to adroitly or fanatically enables the demagogues to carry the crowd with them. There would be no “communists” among factory hands if they knew their true friends.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Eight, 1948–1952.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.

To Paul Arthur Schilpp
Hotel Danieli,
Venice. May 1, 1940

People who are much younger naturally don’t know how unlike the present the intellectual world was fifty years ago, when I wrote my verses. For instance, I had hardly heard of the “metaphysical” poets, and have not read them even now, except in quotations here and there. Rice is perfectly right in his conclusion that when my mind became poetical, I ceased to write in verse. My verse was youthful effusion, not art. Latin facility, not depth.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Six, 1937–1940.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2004.
Location of manuscript: Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

To Henry Ward Abbot
Oxford, England.  April 30, 1887

Dear Harry,

I have read Royce’s book, which I received a few days ago. I am glad to have it, and read it with interest if hardly with pleasure. It is indeed linked dulness long drawn out. It is intolerably diffuse. When a man has something to say he begins by telling you what the situation is, what objects he has in view in speaking to you, and what he proposes to say. He then says it. When he is through he informs you of what he has said, and of his reasons for saying it, and concludes with a hopeful review of the whole matter.

Apart from this and from the vileness of some of the words and phrases (e.g. “lonesome”, “I don’t just perceive why”) I like the style. The absence of cleverness is a praiseworthy self abnegation on the part of a clever man. I honor his desire to see books solidly and honestly written, although I must deplore his attempt at writing one himself.

As you will doubtless have anticipated, I disapprove of the moral, at least of the doctrines involved in it. What business has anyone to call the rather weak affection a wife retains for her husband unworthy? Aren’t husbands & wives to love each other after they cease to think each other perfect? There is, too, a ludicrous inadequacy in the “crime” the unfortunate little fool committed, to bring about such dreadful tragedies.

Royce shows his inexperience. One must laugh at the notion of what’s her name’s chastity on the ground that her husband had once got entangled with a girl foolish enough to go mad of disappointment. If at least he had seduced the creature, or made love to her after he was married, or been engaged to both at once—but as it was the hullabaloo is absurd. Nothing is really so immoral as an extravagant morality. Royce’s theories of love and marriage disgust me. They show what nonsense we talk when we lose respect for experience, tradition, and authority.

. . . I am being entertained with breakfasts and lunches here, thanks to my introductions from his lordship. I find it up hill work to talk to the English fellows, although they are remarkably at home in all sorts of things. They won’t say what they are thinking about, but keep always thinking about what they shall say. The result is that with my love of laying down the law, I do most of the talking and doubtless appear an intolerable damned fool. By the way, Catholicism is in high favor in these parts, and conversions are continual. All this, according to you, would be impossible if they had only taken N.H.4.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book One, [1868]–1909.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.

To Charles Augustus Strong
22 Beaumont St.
Oxford, England.  April 29, 1917

Dear Strong,

I have selected passages out of the preface and the first two chapters of your book and arranged them in what seems to me a very lucid essay, which I suggest might be called an Analysis of Perception . . . I have just read the whole thing over, to correct typewriter’s errors: and my impression is that it is admirable: sober, simple, good-tempered, solid, clear, and unanswerable. Without meritricious ornaments, it gives one more pleasure than a more simpering work would give—Aristotle gives more pleasure than Cicero—at least to me. So that when you ask, Is it as good as Russell, I say, it is not so brilliant, but it is more delightful—not to mention the obvious fact that it is more correct. Not merely because I agree with it; I don’t agree with it all; but because, in spirit, it is science, and Russell’s is private speculation.

The first part of the French translation of Egotism has arrived, and I have had a sad disappointment. No charm of style whatever, no lightness, no smile! The man is interested only in abusing the Germans, and where I try to give the devil his due and retire like Hindenburg according to plan, . . . my good translator misunderstands the text, so as to turn my concessions into a solid blind phalanx of attack. In places he is exact, if not happy: and his knowledge of English is sufficient: what he misses is, I now see, rather subtly and inadequately expressed. I hope he won’t object to my objections, and that we sha’n’t quarrell.

From The Letters of George Santayana:  Book Two, 1910–1920.  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
Location of manuscript: Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow NY.