Excerpt from Santayana, the Later Years: A Portrait With Letters I am not surprised or displeased that you should be somewhat attracted to the church. It is the great, normal, human solution - too human, I think: but I have less need of the sustaining faith than most people: animal faith is enough for me. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important (...) historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This paper is intended to be an interpretation of what I shall venture to call—the deliberate philosophy of Santayana, as outlined in his recent and most penetrating book: Scepticism and Animal Faith. I refrain from employing the battered term metaphysics, because this candid “ lover of wisdom ” has reminded us that his system is not metaphysical, “ except in the mocking literary sense of the word.” What the vulgar, however, understand by the term, he is guilty of offering in (...) this mature work. It is my desire to try and see his philosophy under the searchlight of contemporary discussion;and I shall introduce some remarks of my own on what I consider significant Realistic issues of the day. My philosophy, however, on nearly all conditions, has been formed by, and is in concord with, the system here expounded. (shrink)

Unfortunately for us, it is only the first half-year of his "System in Lectures" that Santayana wished to retain; to wit, the part dealing fully with the "Order of Knowledge"--although there is some overlapping into the "Order of Nature" as is evidenced externally by the list of assigned reading. There is, however, in this mutilated note-book, a "Preface" in which first the use of the general title "Metaphysics" is indicated, and then the complex sub-title, distinguishing the two "orders," is more (...) fully explained. So all together we are hardly at a complete loss as to the themes of the lectures that composed the second half-year. (shrink)