The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human ProgressSantayana, George
Philosophy
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress
Santayana, George
Philosophy
The history of such reappearances—natural history—is meantime a good
subject for observation and experiment. Chronicler and critic can always
approach experience with a method complementary to the deductive methods
pursued in mathematics and logic: instead of developing the import of a
definition, he can investigate its origin and describe its relation to
other disparate phenomena. The mathematician develops the import of
given ideas; the psychologist investigates their origin and describes
their relation to the rest of human experience. So the prophet develops
the import of his trance, and the theologian the import of the prophecy:
which prevents not the historian from coming later and showing the
origin, the growth, and the possible function of that maniacal sort of
wisdom. True, the theologian commonly dreads a critic more than does the
geometer, but this happens only because the theologian has probably not
developed the import of his facts with any austerity or clearness, but
has distorted that ideal interpretation with all sorts of concessions
and side-glances at other tenets to which he is already pledged, so that
he justly fears, when his methods are exposed, that the religious heart
will be alienated from him and his conclusions be left with no foothold
in human nature. If he had not been guilty of such misrepresentation, no
history or criticism that reviewed his construction would do anything
but recommend it to all those who found in themselves the primary
religious facts and religious faculties which that construction had
faithfully interpreted in its ideal deductions and extensions. All who
perceived the facts would thus learn their import; and theology would
reveal to the soul her natural religion, just as Euclid reveals to
architects and navigators the structure of natural space, so that they
value his demonstrations not only for their hypothetical cogency but
for their practical relevance and truth.
[Sidenote: Logic dependent on fact for its importance,]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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