Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 02 Fall 1984

              George Santayana
The following selection is taken from George Santayana, to appear in 1985 in
the Twayne United States Authors Series; it is printed by permission of
Twayne Publishers, a division of G. K. Hall and Co.
The Second World War found Santayana old but philosophically still
vigorous in Italy. Cut off from funds and from his intellectual outlets in
the United States, he retired to the safety of a convent in Rome. Though
there was considerable interest in the expatriate sage after the arrival in
Rome of Allied forces, he never regained much philosophical influence in
America. Since his death there has been a slow increase of interest in his
work. Many of his better known books are now available in paperback.
Graduate students are, once again, writing dissertations on the technical
aspects of his philosophy. An increasing number of undergraduate
courses utilize his major, and in some cases his posthumously published
works. Most important of all, many thoughtful laymen read his writings
for their intrinsic beauty as well as the moral enlightenment they convey.
Santayana's intellectual heritage is genuinely cosmopolitan. His works
show a complete mastery of the philosophical classics. But his reading
was far more extensive than even this. He was thoroughly acquainted
with the great works of literature of both East and West. He read
voluminously in four or five languages and kept abreast of the best
scholarly work of his day. He studied the great works of religion in
painstaking detail: his The Realm of Spirit shows extensive familiarity with
Buddhist and Hindu sources and he turned himself into an expert on the
Bible in preparation for his The Idea of Christ in the Gospels. He was well
aware of the scientific developments of his day and formed his philosophy
in such a way as to make no claim concerning the physical structure of
man or the world. He thought it the function of science to determine
the facts about nature as best such facts may be known by man;
philosophy and religion were to yield to empirical investigation
concerning facts* even though they retained their supremacy in the moral
sphere.
In spite of his acquaintance with the broad outline of science,
Santayana gladly proclaimed himself "an ignorant man, almost a poet."
This is no overstatement or false humility. The heart of science is in its
details, and Santayana never had any interest in the narrow specifics of
the physical order. He thought that scientific views would come and go
with the passage of time. He lacked the mathematical background to
comprehend them and the sustaining interest in minutiae to permit him
to get absorbed in them. His belief in the autonomy of science
functioned like a double edged sword. On the one hand, it served to
control the excesses of philosophers in trying to compete with science on
the basis of mere speculation or moral demands. On the other hand,
however, it placed sharp limits on the scope of science, restricting its valid