The Realm of Matter: Book Second of Realms of Being
THE MAN of the MONTH
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SANTAYANA has professed himself a materialist— ‘apparently the only one living.’ Since the physicists have taken the public into their confidence, and invited them to share the speculative bewilderment that seems to prevail with regard to matter, Santayana’s fidelity to this doctrine may seem even more surprising than it has in the past to those who thought materialism inconsistent with poetry. But surprise is much mitigated by a glance at his meaning. As he says, the objections to materialism are usually founded on some particular conception of matter which happens to be wrong. In his present book he shows with great cogency that the various forms of idealism which have sought to rid philosophy of matter have only abolished its name while attributing its functions to some other agency.
Matter (the essential character of which is hidden from us) is in some form the goal and thc ground of all action, the object of all thought which is not pure contemplation of appearances. We assume it whenever we eat, exercise practical invention, or frame measures to secure some desired object. True, it will remain an assumption to the end of time, posited by animal faith, to use Santayana’s language. But wherever a rabbit looks for cabbage or a man devises a machine, matter is assumed both as making effort possible and as making it fruitful.
Within matter (whatever it may be, and in any age the account given of it by physical science is to be accepted as the best available) our bodies arise and our lives take place. The soul (psyche, Santayana, calls it) is itself material, according to an ancient doctrine. That is to say, it is fundamentally the principle of organization, mysteriously implicit in the animal germ, which supplies the body with organs and the whole animal (or man) with his predisposed character, desires, and capacities for action.
Whether or not we accept such a view intellectually, we all live it and employ it every time we act. This is the strength of Santayana’s position. In the end, of course, it is a position of profound skepticism, for its cardinal point confessedly rests on an assumption which may always be doubted and which intellectually must be doubted before philosophy can begin. The matter about which the materialist talks so much is quite beyond his inspection; most of what he says is said about the admittedly unknown and unknowable. He may have faith that the operations of matter on and within himself give him a real if highly symbolic insight into some aspects of its genuine character. But this is only a faith, ultimately blind and intellectually groundless, simply arising from his animal predisposition to believe that appearances are things. This predisposition is justified in practice; and it is the intellectual implications of this fact that Santayana traces with such wondrous fertility, literary genius, and profound knowledge of human experience. It is the best part of his philosophy.
Another of his major doctrines, the doctrine of essence, is much more confusing and dubious. But whether he understands it or not, the devoted reader of Santayana comes to feel that he knows the moment for it to appear, and learns to adapt himself to it on the whole comfortably, as to a somewhat enigmatic stranger in the house whose habits are calculable enough not to be too upsetting. In the strict realms of physics and psychology, one often feels that Santayana is amiss. He stands largely apart from contemporary learning; he sees things under the aspect of eternity, and must be so seen himself. So subtle and fertile is his style, so inexhaustible the detail of his books, that to trace the exact nature of one’s frequent dissatisfactions with them would itself be a Herculean labor. Perhaps I can express the general effect of these dissatisfactions by a comparison. Where another philosopher would paint with a brush, using a single stroke to suggest a whole bank of foliage, Santayana tirelessly weaves an intricate tapestry, pulling each delicate silken thread into exact place. And the result is not unlike a valuable tapestry, in which the general proportions and life of the figures may be rendered with wondrous animation, and often with a fidelity inspired and perfect; but in other places the towers and beasts and trees and hunters will seem awkward, absurd, or unreal. Nevertheless Santayana still awaits the tribute which will one day be paid him as a poet of serene and noble beauty, as an essayist of inexhaustible fancy, and as a philosopher whose system is not only of importance to the schools, but so instinct with wisdom and so beautiful in its expression that it belongs among those great formative influences which guide and season the minds that come in contact with them.
THEODORE MORRISON