serl afterwards reverted to Kant,
and confused (as I think) the spir–
it with the animal psyche, which
might be anxious, precisely because
it is not transcendental spirit, but
the life of an animal that can fall
into all sorts of traps and suffer
all sorts of collapses.
Besides Husserl I have read
more or less of Heidegger, and
liked his analysis of "pure" ideas,
such as Nothing or Death. He sees
perfectly that the intrinsic vacancy
of these notions lends them the
function of repeating or framing–
in positive objects, as death, by ter–
minating a life, makes a biograph–
ical unit and moral finality of it.
This seems to me much more en–
lightening than leaps or shipwrecks
of the Soul in the Infinite Un–
known.
Could one say, in the spirit of
Kierkegaard, that the total Object
confronting a life or personal exist–
ence was Circumstances? And
would God be a religious name
for this?
If
so, I could see the in–
evitableness, for our animal psy–
che, to fear, love, and grope for
God. And in so far as the King–
dom of Heaven (i.e. the Reign of
God) is just this Object in the
measure in which its operation af–
fects us, I can see how the Existen–
tialist revives the Christian prob–
lem of salvation. But why revive
the
problem
without reviving the
concrete beliefs that
would
explain
and solve it?
I am about to read a new Ital–
ian account of Existentialism by
637
Prof. Castelli, who is a serene
Catholic and man of the world,
who may make things clearer to
me.
Yours sincerely,
G. Santayana
JANE FREILICHER
Nov. 4-29
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