Categories
Thought

George Santayana

Sharing

All philosophies have the common property of being speculative, and, therefore, their immediate influence on those who hold them is in many ways alike, however opposed the theories may be to one another: they all make people theoretical. In this sense any philosophy, if warmly embraced, has a moralising force, because, even if it belittles morality, it absorbs the mind in intellectual contemplation, accustoms it to wide and reasoned comparisons, and makes the sorry escapades of human nature from convention seem even more ignominious than its ruling prejudices.


George Santayana, Egotism in German Philosophy (1916), Chapter XVI, “Egotism in Practice.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *