To the Class of 1886
[Rome.] [May or June 1936]
As to my inner or moral adventures during this half-century, they are in part recorded in my books, which, I believe, would fill all the spaces left vacant in the questionnaire by my non-existent children and grandchildren. Not living any longer in America or being a professor naturally had some influence on my mental tone; also the war of 1914–1918 when I remained in England, chiefly at Oxford. Nevertheless I think I have changed very little in opinion or temper. I was old when I was young, and I am young now that I am old. I have passed through no serious illnesses, emotions, or changes of heart. On the whole the world has seemed to me to move in the direction of light and reason, not that reason can ever govern human affairs, but that illusions and besetting passions may recede from the minds of men and allow reason to shine there. I think this is actually happening. What is thought and said in America now, for instance, especially since the crisis, seems to me far less benighted than what was thought and said when I lived there. People—especially the younger people—also write far better English. If I had the prophetic courage of a John the Baptist I might cry that the kingdom of heaven is at hand; by which I don’t refer to a possible industrial recovery, or to a land flowing with milk and honey, but to a change of heart about just such matters and the beginning of an epoch in which spiritual things may again seem real and important. The modern world is loudly crying peccavi, but we know that this is not enough. There must be a real conversion or redirection of the affections. I think this may actually ensue, in the measure in which such revolutions are compatible with human nature.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Unknown.