In "The Life of Reason," Santayana seeks to explain how reason emerges in five separate areas of human existence: thought, society, religion, art and science.

Originally, Santayana devoted one book to each subject. In this present edition, all five books have been abridged by the author and made into a single volume.

About the Author: Santayana emigrated to the United States in 1872. A graduate of Harvard (1886), he taught in the department of philosophy from 1889 until 1912. After resigning from Harvard he returned to Europe, eventually settling in Italy where he lived in a convent after the outbreak of World War II until his death. He detached himself from the social turmoil of the 20th cent., secluding himself from relationships with either people or events.

Santayana's philosophic stance has been given the apparently opposite descriptions of materialism and Platonism.