224 



SCIENCE. 



[isr. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 580. 



tions of future thus instituted — just because 

 reflection is a consciousness of relative worth, 

 it perforce is a new attitude of will. These 

 better moments, while they satisfy, or are 

 agreeable, are not just pleasures; 'for a bet- 

 terment in sentience would not be progress 

 unless it were a progress in reason, and the 

 increasing pleasure revealed some object which 

 could please ' (p. 4) . Neither, of course, is 

 reason the abstract formula of the intellec- 

 tualist. It is the value of feeling consciously 

 operative in the judging and reconstructing 

 of experiences. In reason, the pleasures of 

 sense are included in so far as they can be 

 intelligently enjoyed and pursued. 



In the Life of Reason, if it were brought to 

 pcvfeetion, intelligence would be at once the uni- 

 versal method of practice and its continual re- 

 ward (p. 5) . 



Again, 



The Life of Reason is simply the unity given to 

 all existence by a mind in love with the good.' 

 In the higher reaches of human nature, as much 

 asi in the lower, rationality depends on distin- 

 guishing the excellent; and that distinction can be 

 made, in the last analysis, only by an irrational 

 impulse. As life is a better form given to force 

 by which the universal flux ia subdued to create 

 and serve a somewhat permanent interest, so rea- 

 son is a better form given to interest itself, by 

 which it is fortified and propagated, and ulti- 

 matelj^ perhaps, assured of satisfaction. * * * 

 Rationality ' * * requires a natural being to 

 possess or to impute it. When definite interests 

 are recognized and the values of things are esti- 

 mated by that standard, action at the same time 

 veering in harmony with that estimation, then 

 reason has been born and a moral world has 

 ari.sen (pp. 46—47). 



This conception is made the basis of an 

 appreciation of Greek philosophy, the wisest 

 and most suggestive, though one of the 

 briefest, known to the present writer; and 

 of a criticism of liberalism (that is, of conven- 

 tional naturalism — always a contradiction), 

 for failing to see that meanings, values, ideas, 

 are supremely real, are quintessentially, nat- 



- The context shows that ' the good ' is inter- 

 preted naturalistically and empirically. It is the 

 persistent consciousness of one's most excellent 

 experiences as these fire, ||5,t<\pdards of(,jappraisal 

 and of action. 



uz'al; and of transcendentalism, for hyposta- 

 tizing ideals into causes and substrates of the 

 universe; for introducing mythology by trans- 

 lating meanings into underlying substances 

 and efficient causes, and thus into physical, 

 instead of moral realities, which have their 

 energy and career in the aspiring and voli- 

 tional life of thoxight which effects, and which 

 is, human progress. 



The working of this discriminative sense of 

 excellence, and its increasing control of vital 

 impulse, through union with it, is then traced 

 through ' the discovery of natural objects,' 

 ' the. discovery of fellow minds,' the develop- 

 ment of ideas, or of universals as themselves 

 concretions, the relationship of things and 

 ideas, and the sense in which (although con- 

 sciousness is inefficient) thought practically 

 operates, thus making a transition to the dis- 

 cussion of the ordinary practical life in which 

 ends, purposes, are pursued. It is impossible 

 to do justice to the volume, delicacy and justice 

 of the observations herein contained, or to the 

 pellucid, informed and pregnant style in 

 which these observations have found their 

 natural expression. A superficial reader, even 

 the philosophic reader who does not think 

 what he reads, may infer that there is a 

 lack of system; the ordinary logical machinery 

 is kept out of sight. But Dr. Santayana has 

 not only swallowed logical formulae; he 

 has digested them. There are many books 

 with much pretence of system and coherent 

 argumentation that have not a fraction of 

 the inevitableness and coherency of these 

 chapters. In the main, Emerson's demand 

 for a logic, so long that it may remain uii- 

 spoken, is fulfilled. 



Of course, disagreements, divergencies of 

 estimation will arise. To me, for example, 

 it seems that Dr. Santayana does scant justice 

 to modern philosophy, to the Lockeian-Kan- 

 tian movement; and that, in spite of his sym- 

 pathy with and appropriation of Greek 

 thought. Dr. Santayana's own position would 

 be inconceivable, without this movement. 

 One may believe (as the present writer is 

 inclined to), that Dr. Santayana forces too 

 far the doctrine of the inherently chaotic or 

 maniacal character of consciousness by itself, 



