New-York tribune., 1922-11-26

George Santayana's s'The Life
ef Reason" for which Mr.. Santayana
has written an extraordinarily candid
and illuminating preface. During the
twenty years that hays intervened be-
tween This biography Of the human in
teilect and the preface which reviews
& IL Mr.. Santayana has come to point
where he no longer puts much faith
& In the efficacy Of what these books
celebrate, namely, human reason.
Where once he saw the intellect de-
1 terminsng and formulating codes for
E the higher good and insuring the
ordered progress Of mankind, he Is
8 Reason he writes, mas become in
poIygiot. interrupted, insecure. / can
not take every phase Of art or religion
or philosophy seriously simply because
I it takes itself so. These things seem
less tragic than they did, and more
a comic; and ! am less eager to choose
y and to judge among them, SIS tx only
one form could be right" Thus 1t is
Il that the philosopher has come to see
y ali philosophy as poetry only, as sub
s {ectiye in essence as any work of the
Il Imagination. Instead Of aThe Life of
II been entitled "The Romance of Wis
i DOM" for Moral philosophy is not a
Il science. 1t moves exclusively in the
1 realm of familiar discourse .
Il The uses Of science remain human, in
that it employs the mind nobly, chas-
& tens the feelings, or increases the
4 safety and comfort OF life. To investi-
gate nature or to refine dialectie be-
1 yond those uses, out of mere curiosity,
may be, an innocent automatic impulse
( in men of sciences, but 1t Is vain. Ply
sizes and dialectic accordingly enter the
life Of reason only as Developments
Fl OF human discourse, colored by hu-
man passions and serving them: the
E uforafist accepts their reports, as he
I. does those of memory and history,
+, that they may enlighten him about the
conditions and the possible forms of
5 happiness. His own art, to which this
4 book Is essentially dedicated, Is to ex-
press his reasoned preferences among
all tbs forms of experience which his
imagination can propose" That Mr..
Santayana's reasoned preferences diff
fer much in what he now calls his
maturity from the reasoned prefer
ence implied in "Tne Life of Reason
4 is in no sense a contradiction of the
zmiable skepticism which informs all
of his later writings. 1t is, indeed, an
1 earnest of It; because, as he points
I out in "Soliloquies in England" the
I work of the essayist, the poet and
+ the philosopher is to suggest each In
7 his different fashion the possibilities
CT life that each of us may choose
what we wish 60 follow, according to
I the dictates Of our hearts and tempera-
/ ments. ''In order to discern this
+ healthy life, for the soul no less than
!. for the body" he writes, mot much
learning is required; only little ex-
/ perience, little reflection, and q lit
tie candor." These are the qualities,
to which he adds the charm OF beau
tiful prose style, which make Mr.. San
j tayana- perhaps the most readable, the
B most enjoyable, the wisest of living
I philosophers.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER II
f In the last issue Of "The Freeman"
Mr.. Albert Jay Mock writes that he has
put in an Improbable hour on each
(! trying to read "UIysses" and "Jurgen."
I This does not prevent him from declar-
ing sunnmarily: Il know for a certainty
I that no sane man could have written
! the book {UlyssesD, because no sane
{ man could possibly stay awake while
! he did 1t. Moreover, no sane man can
read it--really read it--because he
cannot keep his mind on it. There is
nothing for him to keep his mind on,
The thing simply cannot be done. 1t
defes any power of concentration that
can be mustered" God grant me Sc
curity from such sanity as this!
thank q benevolent Providence which
endowed me with madness which
enabled ne to read this book with
the greatest ease and interest from
cover to cover, finding it nowhere diff
4 cult of comprehension and as coherent
and IA unified as any novel by the ac-
knowledged masters of fiction. I am
! glad that among my similars are such
/ madmen as Arnold Bennett. Valery
I Larbaud, H. c. Wells, Mary NJ. Colum,
J. Middleton Murry, Ernest Boyd, Ed
F. mnnd Wilson jr., Ferris Greenslet, Gil
bert Seldes and divers others who
have gone on record as having brought
4 to the book q power of concentration
and understanding, which is insane
enough to encompass the book without
strain or pain. 1t is comfort to re-
feet that none of these had the sanity
TO obscrve that ths pages of Mr.. Joyces
novel Tread precisely like a steno-
graphic report of the outpourings of
excited imbeciles" To us madmen Mr.
4 1oyce's pages read like nothing of the
+ sort; TO our disordered minds it is
4 Mr.. Nock's pages which answer more
E nearly TO that description, As per-
( haps the most balmy of the madmen |
+ can see no sense whatever, for in
f stance, in this dietum OF Mr.. Mock s
"The primary canon of good art, the
first condition put upon a story teller,
Is objectivity, absolute disinterested-
ness" To me that is simply, frankly
6 not so; and / should be much obliged
to Mr.. Mock IL he will tell me one sin
/. gle work of art wherein this canon is
&&pbseryed.
mi SATURDAY, NOVEMBER IS
# Among the books which came In to-
day was a new edition of the late
Henry Morley's translation of Vol
taire's "CandIde,' with some extraor-
dinary illustrations by Alan 0dle. These
drawings are like hallucinations or
queer dreams in which human beings
take ridiculous, writhing shapes and
every conceivable ugliness of the body
is exaggerated. They emphasize the
sardonic and acidulous wit of Voltaire,
but from another angle, another point
OF view; they are hardly in character
with the spirit of the satire
My wife and I went to New Rochelle
for dinner with Lucille and Horace
Liveright and found there Eddie Mayer
and Mr.. and Mrs. w. II. Siegel. Horace
told how he had gone to see Bernard
Shaw when he was in England, and
how, being nervous over the experience
OF meeting tho great man, he con-
sumed fifteen or twenty cigarettes in
the drawing room before Shaw mt