SANTAYANA'S TOWER
Otto, Max C.
Santayana's Tower DOMINATIONS AND POWERS, by George Santayana. Charles Scribner's Sons. 481 pp. $4.50. Reviewed by Max C. Otto WHERE have the unhurried days gone that we used to enjoy, those...
...Santayana has for years seemed to me the superlative artist of our profession...
...There is, however, something amiss in* the performance...
...In the midst of the blind currents of nature and the continual partial catastrophes, many happy possibilities come to light, and many approaches to harmony appear between vital impulses and restricting or furthering conditions...
...Particulars of observation, enormous learning, far-flung vistas, incisive logic, poetic creativeness, unshakable conviction, imperturbable philosophic calm, these are some of the qualities that unite to make Dominations and Powers one of the great works in the history of philosophy...
...it is a work of thought...
...Had the author of Genesis been a reading man, or a reading woman, if perchance the author was a woman, every seventh day might have been dedicated to leisurely reading, not, as it was, to resting from work as a preparation for more of it...
...He has always been aloof from it...
...Something that is almost said in other sentences and paragraphs, and which comes to this: It is less dreadful for the many inferior to suffer, than for the superior few to be denied the more precious good which their higher status demands...
...He speaks repeatedly on behalf of diversity of instinctive preferences and diversity of loyalties...
...This might mean that it is worse to live as great numbers of people are forced to live, than if they were to die and have it over with...
...Ill In this example we see a massive exemplification of the theme of the whole book, the encroachment of Dominations on Powers...
...Yet whatever just objection may be advanced against this book, its brilliance will for many people outweigh every shortcoming...
...and he should not expect the good or the beautiful after his own heart to be greatly prevalent or long maintained in the world...
...This may be more in his manner than in his spirit, for life has taught him, he frankly confesses, "that one's sense of what is good and beautiful must have a somewhat narrow foundation, namely, his circumstances and his particular brand of human nature...
...Moreover, you are again and again made aware of Santayana's detachment from the everyday human struggle...
...the problem of how to distinguish wisdom from folly...
...In that event the history of mankind would have been different from what it turned out to be...
...If there is, that may be the place to go with this latest and longest book by George Santayana...
...The subject is the art of life...
...My friend spoke truly...
...Says Santayana, referring to that war: "I lived through it in Rome in monastic retirement, with the visible and audible rush of bombing aeroplanes over my head, and of invading armies before my eyes...
...Hence: "There is therefore another sphere, that of potential goods, which each man may evoke according to the warmth and richness of his imagination...
...Dominations are those forces, whatever they may be, that impose themselves from outside upon the spontaneous life of any beings or societies that have initial interests of their own...
...The conclusion arrived at is, I believe, that what the world can offer to us is, after all, variety...
...Most pertinent and instructive, also, has been the experience of the after-effects of that war...
...and it is as extraordinary an achievement in the realm of thinking as it is in the realm of writing...
...In this book he has surpassed even himself...
...They will not mind that there are tears in it but no laughter...
...The mass of manuscript out of which it took form had accumulated for some thirty years, guided by an early intuition rather than a set plan, an intuition which became clearer and clearer with the lapse of the years, until the war of 1939-1945 brought the import of it all to more vivid apprehensions...
...It depends upon who the reader is and what he hopes to get from the reading...
...There is but one social tendency that kindles his wrath, "the tendency of industrial liberalism to level down all civilizations to a single cheap and dreary pattern...
...I felt as if I had opened a treasure chest of rare gems, each incredibly beautiful and the collection positively enchanting...
...II From this elevated position he sends down pronouncements and definitions as though they were revelations of ultimate truth...
...Still, the "air of ironic superiority" seems to me obtrusive throughout the book and greatly to detract from its spiritual value...
...much disdain of men and little admiration...
...it is based on a native'bent in his soul without which he would not be himself...
...Innumerable insights and ideas, fresh, vivid, arresting, are to be found there...
...It is the kind of book which seems to me is sure to live because it will nourish the thinking of persons of a certain temperament in many climates, physical as well as cultural...
...But it is not only a work of art...
...one came to defend and the other to liberate it...
...and that something should be done by us in concert to improve this unhappy situation...
...Intellectual wealth gathered during a long lifetime by a mind of singular power and a spirit of singular independence is lavishly expended in its pages...
...and both united in pillaging it and leaving it in misery and ruins...
...A talented teacher of philosophy wrote to me saying: "Be sure to read Dominations and Powers...
...in this book he seems even farther withdrawn than heretofore...
...It is less dreadful to die," he says, "than to live contrary to one's deepest inclinations...
...Possibly there is still a haven to which one may retreat for reading without a sense of hurry...
...and if he has any integrity or moral strength he will easily discern where his chosen treasure lies...
...But as one reads the brilliant chapters, not merely this isolated sentence, the suspicion grows that its deeper meaning is something else...
...The book is positively enchanting as literature...
...You quickly get a sense of what Justice Holmes meant when he said that Santayana "has an air of ironic superiority...
...The country where I was living was traversed by two foreign armies nominally friendly to it...
...Reviewed by Max C. Otto WHERE have the unhurried days gone that we used to enjoy, those small eternities when we could linger over a book instead of having to make haste to get it read...
...He is the all-knowing philosopher who, in the words of his admired Plato, aims to be "the spectator of all time and all existence...
...Its amoral tone will displease you, but you will be delighted by the sheer beauty of the writing...
...Santayana's subject deals with the various circumstances which "enable these fruits to mature, or perhaps nip them in the bud...
...Whether it is attainable in the world or not will not shake his allegiance...
Vol. 15 • December 1951 • No. 12
