The Life of Reason, George Santayana [e novels to read .txt] 📗

the Life ofReason, if it were brought to perfection, intelligence would be at oncethe universal method of practice and its continual reward. Allreflection would then be applicable in action and all action fruitful inhappiness. Though this be an ideal, yet everyone gives it from time totime a partial embodiment when he practises useful arts, when hispassions happily lead him to enlightenment, or when his fancy breedsvisions pertinent to his ultimate good. Everyone leads the Life ofReason in so far as he finds a steady light behind the world's glitterand a clear residuum of joy beneath pleasure or success. No experiencenot to be repented of falls without its sphere. Every solution to adoubt, in so far as it is not a new error, every practical achievementnot neutralised by a second maladjustment consequent upon it, everyconsolation not the seed of another greater sorrow, may be gatheredtogether and built into this edifice. The Life of Reason is the happymarriage of two elements--impulse and ideati