The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human ProgressSantayana, George
Philosophy
The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress
Santayana, George
Philosophy
Functional relations of mind and body.—They form one natural
life.—Artifices involved in separating them.—Consciousness expresses
vital equilibrium and docility.—Its worthlessness as a cause and value
as an expression.—Thought’s march automatic and thereby implicated in
events.—Contemplative essence of action.—Mechanical efficacy alien to
thought’s essence.—Consciousness transcendental and transcendent.—It
is the seat of value.—Apparent utility of pain.—Its real
impotence.—Preformations involved.—Its untoward significance.—Perfect
function not unconscious.—Inchoate ethics.—Thought the entelechy of
being.—Its exuberance. Pages 205-235
CHAPTER X
THE MEASURE OF VALUES IN REFLECTION
Honesty in hedonism.—Necessary qualifications.—The will must
judge.—Injustice inherent in representation.—Æsthetic and speculative
cruelty.—Imputed values: their inconstancy.—Methods of control.—Example
of fame.—Disproportionate interest in the æsthetic.—Irrational
religious allegiance.—Pathetic idealisations.—Inevitable impulsiveness
in prophecy.—The test a controlled present ideal. Pages 236-255
CHAPTER XI
SOME ABSTRACT CONDITIONS OF THE IDEAL
The ultimate end a resultant.—Demands the substance of
ideals.—Discipline of the will.—Demands made practical and
consistent.—The ideal natural.—Need of unity and finality.—Ideals of
nothing.—Darwin on moral sense.—Conscience and reason compared.—Reason
imposes no new sacrifice.—Natural goods attainable and compatible in
principle.—Harmony the formal and intrinsic demand of reason. Pages
256-268
CHAPTER XII
FLUX AND CONSTANCY IN HUMAN NATURE
Respectable tradition that human nature is fixed.—Contrary
currents of opinion.—Pantheism.—Instability in existences does
not dethrone their ideals.—Absolutist philosophy human and
halting.—All science a deliverance of momentary thought.—All
criticism likewise.—Origins inessential.—Ideals functional.—They
are transferable to similar beings.—Authority internal.—Reason
autonomous.—Its distribution.—Natural selection of minds.—Living
stability.—Continuity necessary to progress.—Limits of variation.
Spirit a heritage.—Perfectibility.—Nature and human nature.—Human
nature formulated.—Its concrete description reserved for the sequel.
Pages 269-291
Introduction to “The Life of Reason”
[Sidenote: Progress is relative to an ideal which reflection creates.]
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