ABSTRACT
In no quarter of his thought was Santayana more subject to attack than in his political philosophy, and in no quarter were his views less understood. He chose his political position early and stated it repeatedly. Yet his critics imagined him to have shifted from what they assumed was a liberalism like theirs, to enthusiasm for fascism, whether Spanish, Italian, or German. Liberalism, he wrote, was pre-Victorian and tame; in the charge of Mrs. Grundy, it forbade dogs to fight and bite, venerated culture, enforced education, and put stable wealth at the head of the social table. With the passing of paganism, the Christian Church adopted the classical idea of liberty: liberty for itself in the belief that "it had come into the world to set men free." Mens freedom was not defined classically, but constrained by the definition according to the dogmas of the Church on what constitutes true happiness: salvation.
