Professional Documents
Culture Documents
GEORGE SANTAYANA
LONDON
CONSTABLE AND CO. LTD.
1925
Pointed in Great Britain by R. R. R, CLARK, LiMrnn,
CONTENTS
PA.GE
V, LOVERS OF ILLUSION 70
near enough ?
blowing ;
it will drive the coarsely streaming
essences of your apothecary all in one direction,
which I will avoid ; but the effluvia of mind (if
any) are far more subtle than the air ^jid cannot
be swept aside by its currents , but continue to
enemies to me ;
for I am a friend of nature and s
fit
only for internal consumption and bitter if
exuded ; and so it is also with that other product
of the liver, inspiration a healthful and necessary
:
cruet ;
arfd no wonder, for he is still alive.
as thehuge immovable
effigies Egyptian of
monarchs are mirrored brokenly In the flowing
Nile.
happy here ?
it;
for the face of truth cannot be unveiled to
mortals by any novelty or exchange of images but ,
Hector cries :
VIVISECTION OF A MIND
it
may hurt his feelings.
and those pale men and nations that are the slaves of
tools will no doubt disappear in time such arts;
in his composition.
The Stranger. Can the surgeon's knife Demo- ,
gyrations.
Alcibiades. Why are you displeased with a fair
answer ?
Philosophers are as jealous as women ;
if
they relish their was speaking of a
fate. I
prepares
to
depart).
You see that
you had nothing
to fear. The old man has cut
you up without
hurting you.
The Stranger. The operation was unnecessary,
NORMAL MADNESS
Democritm, You
reappear In season, inquisitive
Pilgrim, and to-day you must take a seat beside
me. These young men are compelling my hoary
philosophy to disclose the cause of all the follies
that they perpetrated when alive.
They still
nothing ;
but they have a meaning to the heart,
and are not forbidden. You may, therefore,
without scientific error, praise madness or deride
it. Your own disposition and habit will dictate
these judgements. A
weak and delicate animal
like man could have arisen only in an equable
denied It ;
so that for the blatant errors of his
much shorter ;
and if the word soul Is particularly
precious to you, you may even say that plants
and flowers have souls only, if you wish to be
:
change of dreams.
Democritus. Do you think I should blame
you ? Is the
sublimity of truth
impatient of
error ? I know well the shock that comes to
56 DIALOGUES IN LIMBO
innocence on discovering that the beautiful Is
unsubstantial. The soul, too, has her virginity
and must bleed a little before bearing fruit. You
misconceive my philosophy if you suppose that I
deny the beautiful or would madly forbid it to
appear. Has not my whole discourse been an
apology for Illusion and a proof of its necessity ?
When I discover that the substance of the beautiful
is a certain rhythm and harmony In motion, as the
atoms dance In circles through the void (and what
else should the substance of the beautiful be If it
has a substance at all ?) far from destroying the
beautiful in the realm of appearance my discovery
AUTOLOGOS
Aldbiades. Receive us with honour, noble Be-
mocritus, for we are heralds of a god. The divine
a measured dance.}
Democritus. You, silent Stranger do not follow
,
70
OF 71
suffered to depart .
to understand it.
your shield ;
for my shaft will transfix your
pleasantness.
Democntus. At least you are pleasant assailants^
who exhibit your wooden weapons before the
fight, so that my panoplied philosophy need not
fear the slightest wound. Come on, then, young
braggarts, and me
endure your first assault.
let
my throat.
Aldbiades. I am sure he has finished. He Is
dreams ;
and I daresay there is a poet In every
nut and In every berry. But the soul of animals
must be watchful they cannot live on mere hope^
;
Hence 1 and
compulsion to discover the truth.
the Stranger, who have both been observant
travellers,have discovered so much more of It
than you. When a flea, enticed from a distance
by the wafted warmth and fragrance of your body,
jumps from a beggar's rags and lodges snugly in
some fold of your royal flesh* It is a wise flea,
78 IN
not only according to Socrates and Aristippus, in
that it
prefers the better to the worse, but also
according to me, in that it has a keen scent and
true knowledge of nature. But when presently
sated and swollen with your rich blood, this same
flea begins to have poetic visions such as your ,
ing for that flea with all a poor man's sagacity until ,
rough and
arts passions of mariners and soldiers ,
ON SELF-GOVERNMENT
FIRST DIALOGUE
RIGHT GOVERNMENT
RESTS ON THE WILL
OF THE GOVERNED
The Stranger. We need no god and no oracle
to tell us that. It is a commonplace^ and the
foundation of all our politics.
Socrates. I rejoice to hear it ; for if the maxim
is always on your lips, you will probably be able
to tell me what it means* Does right govern-
ment, I pray, mean good government ? And
ON SELF-GOVERNMENT 91
government.
Socrates. It would be a terrible tragedy indeed
ifsuch an excellent thing as self-government came
to a bad end. But I cannot credit the report ,
revolution ?
perfection,
The Siranger. Perhaps the spirit in us 5 like
that of some half-tamedbeast, not quite recon-
is
allegiances.
Socrates. Eloquence, by venting the feelings,
sometimes clears the mind. Would you now
be able, I wonder, to answer a simple question
which I asked you at the beginning ? Does right
government mean good government ?
The Stranger. No I see now that there
: is a
difference. Legitimacy in a government depends
on the origin of its authority : excellence depends
on its fruits.
dignity in freedom,
Socrates. Is there an intrinsic dignity in the
freedom of a blind man when the degrading
by the dog or the child leading
restraint exercised
him is removed, and he walks over a precipice ?
The Stranger. Yes, if he is weary of being
blind and of being led, and prefers to commit
suicide.
Socrates, The dignity which you attribute to
suicide would disappear, I suppose, if the moment
the man himself falling through the void, he
felt
ON SELF-GOVERNMENT
SECOND DIALOGUE
voting-booths ,
arenot neglected in your just
democracy 5
but your chief magistrate or high
priest or some vestal virgin especially appointed
doubtless rises solemnly in your assembly amid ?
Socrates. That
is a question 1 meant to ask
poetry.
ON 121
THE PHILANTHROPIST
Socrates.
According to your reports inveterate ,
my mind.
Socrates. Now would you say that the love
which a man has for himself is genuine or feigned
and hypocritical ?
The Stranger. Unmistakably genuine,
Socrates. And does he love himself as he
meaning ?
a friend ;
but service is not true friendship. A
good servant follows my directions a bad one ,
freedom to perfection.
The Stranger. Yes but our preference in this
3
Is out of date ;
and In woman he seems to find
concentrated the beauty and fineness all the
all ,
Socrates. Publish
it
by all means.
The Stranger. The sum of it is this : that we
THE 137
seat of love is
matter, when
Inner yearning and
its
or are forgotten ;
but meantime we must endure
them, and live and die in a far exile from our
natural good. Charity is the friendship of one
exile for another.
Socrates. You must excuse my dull wits s but
I have not yet gathered from your eloquence
whether the natural good from which you are
banished is the happiness proper to man at home,
or is perhaps the life of the gods in Olympus, to
which you think yourself entitled and fitted by
nature. Is a part of what troubles you, for
permission.
Socrates. Is It even conceivable that he might
secretly substitute himself for a woman's husband,
or carry her away in a cloud to his own haunts ,
god s
In view of the necessary Imperfection of all
living creatures.
The Stranger. Yes, If this god, or man taught
by a god, is not scornful of Imperfection, or In-
different, or even given to gloating over it, on the
ground that it keeps the ball rolling. He must be
a spirit made flesh who himself suffers.
,
This
suffering cannot be stilled by establishing any
tribe of animals, or any one soul, in Its natural
No, no
Socrates, how should a plain man
:
may lapse from that form, and the race may seem
to be extinguished, the forgotten pattern is still
inviolate in heaven, inviting and summoning that
M
IX
its immediate
promise, which the next moment
denies or transforms. They roll on, and the flux
of nature sucks them up altogether. But when
intellect, as in you, comes to dominate life and
5
of comfort. It is thine for a silver penny/ Then
1 took a silver penny from my purse and gave it
"
him, saying Keep thy rare book for thy
:
"
O most venerable sage and my father in God,
what a blessing have I received at thy hands !
THE ENH