In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Genteel Tradition at Bay The Genteel Tradition at Bay. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons; London: “The Adelphi,” 1931. Volume seventeen of the critical edition of The Works of George Santayana. The three parts of this selection were first published in three issues of The Saturday Review of Literature in January 1931 and then appeared together as a small book. It was commissioned by the editor of The Saturday Review, who had sent Santayana recent books on humanism in America by Irving Babbit (1863–1933) and others. In a letter Santayana wrote, “I am a Naturalist in general philosophy, whereas Babbit & [Paul Elmer] More begin with moralism. I admit their point of view only as an optional attitude, as if they were Roman patriots or Buddhist monks, but I feel no obligation to accept or enforce any special code or any special civilization” ( LGS, 5:107). In Part I, “Analysis of Modernity ,” Santayana showed how the Renaissance, the Reformation and modern political revolutions along with the Romantic tradition have undone Christianity as a unifying cultural ideal. In Part II, “The Appeal to the Supernatural,” he showed how the moralism of the New Humanists requires support from a Platonic-Christian theology. In Part III, “Moral Adequacy of Naturalism,” he provided a detailed summary of his naturalism in morals. I ANALYSIS OF MODERNITY Twenty years ago the genteel tradition in America seemed ready to melt gracefully into the active mind of the country. There were few misgivings about the perfect health and the all-embracing genius of the nation: only go full speed ahead and everything worth doing would ultimately get done. The churches and universities might have some pre-American stock-in-trade, but there was nothing stubborn or recalcitrant about them; they were happy to bask in the golden sunshine of plutocracy; and there was a feeling abroad—which I think reasonable— that wherever the organisation of a living thing is materially perfected, there an appropriate moral and intellectual life will arise spontaneously. But the gestation of a native culture is necessarily long, and the new birth may seem ugly to an eye accustomed to some other form of excellence. Will the new life ever be as beautiful as the old? Certain too tender or too learned minds may refuse to credit it. Old Harvard men will remember the sweet sadness of Professor Norton. He would tell his classes, shaking his head with a slight sigh, that the Greeks did not play football. In America there had been no French cathedrals, no Venetian The Essential Santayana 556 school of painting, no Shakespeare, and even no gentlemen, but only gentlemenly citizens. The classes laughed, because that recital of home truths seemed to miss the humour of them. It was jolly to have changed all that; and the heartiness of the contrary current of life in everybody rendered those murmurs useless and a little ridiculous. In them the genteel tradition seemed to be breathing its last. Now, however, the worm has turned. We see it raising its head more admonishingly than ever, darting murderous glances at its enemies, and protesting that it is not genteel or antiquated at all, but orthodox and immortal. Its principles, it declares, are classical, and its true name is Humanism. The humanists of the Renaissance were lovers of Greek and of good Latin, scornful of all that was crabbed, technical, or fanatical: they were pleasantly learned men, free from any kind of austerity, who, without quarrelling with Christian dogma, treated it humanly, and partly by tolerance and partly by ridicule hoped to neutralise all its metaphysical and moral rigor. Even when orthodoxy was re-affirmed in the seventeenth century and established all our genteel traditions , some humanistic leaven was mixed in: among Protestants there remained a learned unrest and the rationalistic criticism of tradition: among Catholics a classical eloquence draping everything in large and seemly folds, so that nothing trivial, barbaric, or ugly should offend the cultivated eye. But apart from such influences cast upon orthodoxy, the humanists continued their own labours. Their sympathy with mankind was not really universal, since it stopped short at enthusiasm , at sacrifice, at all high passion or belief; but they loved the more physical and comic aspects of life everywhere and all curious knowledge, especially when it could be turned against prevalent prejudices or abuses. They believed in the sufficient natural goodness of mankind, a goodness humanised by frank sensuality and a wink at all amiable vices; their truly ardent morality...

Share