The ideals presented are, in the main, aristocratic, at least as involving an aristocracy of culture. For, as Professor Santayana contends: "Culture is on the horns of this dilemma: if profound and noble it must remain rare, if common it must become mean. These alternatives can never be eluded until some purified and high-bred race succeeds the promiscuous bipeds that now blacken the planet" (Vol. II, p. in). Elsewhere, speaking of the disastrous effects of war, he says: "Internecine war, foreign and civil, brought about the greatest set-back which the Life of Reason has ever suffered; it exterminated the Greek and Italian aristocracies. Instead of being descended from heroes, modern nations are descended from slaves; and it is not their bodies only that show it" (Vol. II, pp. 82, 83). But these rather cynical passages and others to the same general effect must not be taken too seriously, for the author admits: "Democratic theory seems to be right, however, about the actual failure of theocracies, monarchies, and oligarchies to remain representative and to secure the general good. The true eminence which natural leaders may have possessed in the beginning usually declines into a conventional and baseless authority" (Vol. II, p. 122). Professor Santayana would have done well to take more to heart his own suggestive remark in another connection: "Consciousness is not ideal merely in its highest phases; it is ideal through and through. On one level as much as on another, it celebrates an attained balance in nature, or grieves at its collapse; it prophesies and remembers, it loves and dreams" (Vol. II, p. 139).
In taking leave of these volumes,—which are to be followed by three others, on "Reason in Religion," "Reason in Art," and "Reason in Science," one must remember that we have as yet only the introductory parts of a systematic treatise and not the completed work. The remaining volumes are sure to be awaited with more than ordinary interest. Whatever may be the self-imposed limitations of this interpretation of the Life of Reason, it strikes a very true note, in the main, at a time when the ideals of too many earnest men are sadly confused, and when action is too often taken as an end in itself, without regard to what reason may progressively reveal as to ultimate truth or the Supreme Good.Ernest Albee.
Cornell University.
By 'rational æsthetics,' M. Souriau means the submission of our
