The hedonist, the christian, and the epicurean.

By Ricardo Mena.

I.- Character of the epistolar source of Santayana.

In the letters of Santayana one finds the intimacy, sincerity and peaceful dimension of this Hispanic American philosopher. Jaime Nubiola informs us of a conversation that the Catalonian (not very "Spanish" himself) Eugenio D'ors had with him. Nubiola informs us of what Eugenio D'ors wrote when Santayana passed away (see http://www.unav.es/users/Articulo21.html):

"On the death of Santayana (October 5th, 1952).

–And you count me as Catholic?, Jorge Santayana asked me that night. (He had received me at nine postmeridie, like if we were in Madrid; an unheard of event in a convent.)

–Yes, I replied. Just like Michael Angelo.

Moments later it was I who interrogated him.

–And you consider yourself Spanish?

–Yes, was the reply. Just like Christopher Columbus."

II.- The moral dimension of Santayana.

When his friend from Harvard (class of 1886) Henry Ward Abbot asks Santayana what to do with his life, what path to follow, whether going for business or going for philosophy or art, Santayana tries with his pointed knowledge of the human spirit and, thus, of psychology, to suggest him some steps. The calm, peaceful, and detached spirit of Santayana may be explained by saying that, because he believed each human being had the right to have his or her own perfection, he always developed and perfected his own moral one in the same individual way. Let us listen to him now.

III.- First step: the sincerity of the patient.

Santayana asks him to tell him what and how he feels truly in his letter of 27 August 1886 from Göttinguen, Germany, where Santayana has gone with a scholarship. Recognising that truth can be, sometimes, many times, painful and dark, the physician of the human soul that is Santayana, warns his friend:

"I will not think any the worse of you for telling me what is psychologically (or, as in Ward's case, physiologically) true of you. I know before hand that at the bottom of things spiritual is darkness, and at the bottom of things physical, filth; but I think it a pleasant thing for a few persons (and there have always been such) to say it to each other in a decent way."

IV.- Second step: to know what one wants.

Santayana, in the second letter to his friend Ward Abbot from Berlin on the 6th October, 1886, gives him this second advice to his desperate friend that finds himself in a crossroads where all of us have find ourselves, more or less consciously, after leaving the family bossom.

"All that an emancipated man asks is which objects attract him most, and what are the means of attaining those objects. To do right is to know what you want. Now when you are dissatisfied with yourself, it's because you are after something you don't want."

V.- Third step: the parable of the mustard seed.

In the third letter that we rescue for this essay of the 1^st November, 1886, from Berlin, Santayana explains his meaning to his confused friend thus:

"I can easely make my general position more clear by a parable. Suppose a mustard seed asked advice of an oak how it should grow, and that the oak (being a fanatic) said: Young seed, unless you grow up into an oak and bear acorns you will be a worthless and immoral plant. (...)

And suppose further the mustard seed asked advice also of an elm, which said: My little seed, consider yourself and study your own nature, till you discover what kind of a seed you are. Then look for the ground where your species grows best, and plant yourself there. In this way you will have the best chance of growing up into a good and beautiful tree. But if you plant yourself in ground unfit for you, you may never spring up, or if you do, you will live with pain and difficulty, and be a shrunken and feeble plant. Yet if you should make a mistake, do not be too much troubled; for in the end all trees alike must perish, and the time will soon come when neither boughs nor dry branches will be remembered."

And paragraphs later, the psychologist (or physiologist) adds to his friend:

"If it is contradictory and hypocritical to have tastes and prejudices, I must give up logic and sincerity. But it seems to me that when ones sees the arbitrariness of all ideals, the à priori equality of all aims, one can stick to one's own with all the better conscience. That is what I had in mind when I said that to do right is to know what you want. (...)

The only obligation possible appears when your needs and aspirations are given and you ask what you ought to do to satisfy them."

VI.- Forth step, only for thinkers: epicureism vs hedonism.

To do what one wants for the sheer pleasure of doing it is known for the peyorative name its enemies use against it: hedonism, which it should be differentiated from epicureism; the latter is rather like a philosophy that avoids pain and tries to live away from the worldly problems in order to achieve spiritual peace, something that, it seems proper to me, is related with Buddhism more than with Christianism, for Christianism does not avoid pain, but accepts it and, in extreme cases such as Christ or Francis of Assisi, salutes it and blesses it. I think that in here we have one of the new values that Christianism offers to the world and the human spirit; in place of trying to avoid pain, it is to receive it and  salute it with courage and humillity.

Santayana was more epicurean than hedonist; because of this, he says to his friend Abbot (on his letter of 16 January 1887) that "[t]he difference between the hedonist and the naturalists [i.e. epicurean] will thus be reduced to an original difference in their observations. If a man believes that men usually know what they are about, he will like the hedonist; if he thinks men usually don't, he will like the naturalists. I like the naturalists."

Santayana says to his friend why he loves philosophy and why he wants to make his life a philopher's one:

"I think the talking philosophers alone are worth hearing; they come to you as one man to another, on the basis of everyday facts and life. That is what makes Aristotle so much the safest and wisest of men."

That Santayana is a naturalists, and epicureist, is confirmed when he himself writes at the end of this letter to his friend Abbot:

"By the way, do you ever read Lucretius? If you don't, I should advise you to try him. He fills me with the greatest enthusiasm and delight. The arguments are often childish, but the energy, the flow, the magnificence and solidity are above everything."

What a brave and sincere spiritual mind. 


Rest in peace, Stranger.

Oremus...