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beget claptrap or shed light, depending on the sense of fact with which
we use it; and will also, conceivably, be more applicable to Santa–
yana than to some other philosophers. In any case it seems no accident
that the autobiography has few surprises for us, that it merely sum–
marizes the human person that had already taken shape through the
philosophy. And this dualism or unity, whichever it be, of the human
person and the philosopher seems aptly summarized towards the end
of the book in a passing remark, which may now, accordingly, be left
with the reader as our own summary.
The remark comes apropos of a discussion with Josiah Royce
while Santayana was still an undergraduate at Harvard College. The
relations between the pupil and his mentors, Royce and William
James, were perhaps as decisive for Santayana's intellectual develop–
ment as the familial relations of his childhood for the development
of the man, and like these latter leave our curiosity on some points
unappeased. Santayana's debt to these men he has acknowledged in
two essays which may be, so far as I know, the most brilliant pieces
of writing ever done on James and Royce; but which also slightly
repel us by a certain underlying tone of cold condescension. But Royce
gets some redress at last: the kindness with which he is now remem–
bered contrasts sharply with that rather cold treatment he has been
given in the earlier essay. This may be part of the general tenderness
of the autobiography, the softened lines that an old man's memory
sees, when the antagonisms generated out of academic competition
have long since blown over; but the change of tone may also signify–
what is more important-a newer and probably more adequate evalu–
ation of Royce's importance. This discussion in which Royce appears
is about Spinoza, whom Santayana wants to present as a very early
and decisive interest. We may agree that this subject is a significant
cue to his development though we may doubt that the influence
has been as decisive as he thinks, since he has always seen in Spinoza
only as much as he wanted to see, which is a good deal less than
the whole; the significance may reside rather in the fact that this
lifelong devotion to a daring speculative metaphysician like Spinoza
amounts in itself to a very important philosophical perception on
Santayana's part that his own naturalism is as much a speculative
philosophy as the various speculative philosophies of idealism or the–
ism, which it is meant to compete with and displace; a point on
which a good many other modern naturalists are hardly as frank.
The discussion leads him to remark of Royce:
r
"Royce had a powerful and learned mind, and it was always profit-
