PHILOSOPHY
The omission of Mr. Santayana’s philosophy from the above account indicates no lack of appreciation of its merits. Although written at Harvard, it is hardly an American philosophy. On one hand, Mr. Santayana is free from the mystical religious longings that have given our Idealisms life, and on the other, he is too confident of the reality of culture and the value of the contemplative life to sanction that dominance of the practical which is the stronghold of instrumentalism.
The only histories of American Philosophy are those by Professor Woodbridge Riley. His “Early Schools” (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1907), is a full treatment of the period in question, but his “American Thought from Puritanism to Pragmatism” (H. Holt, 1915) is better reading and comes down to date. These are best read in connection with some history of American Literature such as Barrett Wendell’s “Literary History of America” (Scribner’s Sons, 1914). Royce’s system is given in good condensed form in the last four chapters of his “Spirit of Modern Philosophy” (Houghton Mifflin, 1899). Its exhaustive statement is “The World and the Individual” (2 vols., Macmillan, 1900–1). The “Philosophy of Loyalty” (Macmillan, 1908) develops the ethics, and the “Problem of Christianity” (2 vols., Macmillan, 1913), relates his philosophy to Christianity. Hocking’s religious philosophy is given in his “Meaning of God in Human Experience” (Yale University Press, 1912). His general position is developed on one side in “Human Nature and Its Remaking” (Yale University Press, 1918). Anything of James is good reading. His chief work is the “Principles of Psychology” (H. Holt, 1890), but the “Talks to Teachers on Psychology and Some of Life’s Ideals” (H. Holt, 1907) and the “Will to Believe” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1899), better illustrate his attitude toward life. “Pragmatism” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1907) introduces his technical philosophizing. His religious attitude can be got from the “Varieties of Religious Experience” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1902). Dewey has nowhere systematized his philosophy. Its technical points are exhibited in the “Essays in Experimental Logic” (University of Chicago Press, 1916). The “Influence of Darwin on Philosophy” (H. Holt, 1910) has two especially readable essays, one the title-essay, the other on “Intelligence and Morals.” The full statement of his ethics is the “Ethics” (Dewey and Tufts, H. Holt, 1908). He is at his best in “Education and Democracy” (Macmillan, 1916). “German Philosophy and Politics” (H. Holt, 1915) is a war-time reaction giving an interesting point of view as to the significance of German Philosophy. “The New Realism” (Macmillan, 1912) is a volume of technical studies by the Six Realists. “Creative Intelligence” (H. Holt, 1917), by John Dewey and others, is a similar volume of pragmatic studies. The reviews are also announcing another co-operative volume, “Essays in Critical Realism” by Santayana, Lovejoy and others. In a technical fashion Perry has discussed the “Present Tendencies in Philosophy” (Longmans, Green & Co., 1912), but the best critical reaction to American philosophy is that of Santayana: “Character and Opinion in the United States” (Scribner’s Sons, 1920). Santayana’s own chief philosophic contributions are the “Sense of Beauty” (Scribner’s Sons, 1896), and the “Life of Reason” (5 vols., Scribner’s Sons, 1905–6). The first two chapters of his “Winds of Doctrine” (Scribner’s Sons, 1913), on the “Intellectual Temper of the Age” and “Modernism and Christianity,” are also relevant. Brief but excellent expositions of Royce, Dewey, James, and Santayana by Morris R. Cohen have appeared in the New Republic, vols. XX-XXIII.
H. C. B.