  In 1900, Santayana’s Interpretations of Poetry and Religion develops his view that religion and poetry are expressive celebrations of life. Each in its own right is of great value, but if either is mistaken for science, the art of life is lost along with the beauty of poetry and religion. Science provides explanations of natural phenomena, but poetry and religion are festive celebrations of human life born of consciousness generated from the interaction of one’s psyche (the natural structure and heritable traits of one’s physical body) and the physical environment. As expressions of human values, poetry and religion are identical in origin. Understanding the naturalistic base for poetry and religion and valuing their expressive character enable one to appreciate them without being hoodwinked: “poetry loses its frivolity and ceases to demoralise, while religion surrenders its illusions and ceases to deceive” (172). Interestingly, his father expressed similar views in his letters to his son, providing the genesis of his son’s reflections, and this conclusion is expressed as late as the 1946 publication of The Idea of Christ in the Gospels where Santayana presents the idea of Christ as poetic and imaginative, contrasted with attempts at historical, factual accounts of the Christ figure. The impact of Santayana’s view was significant, and Henry James (after reading Interpretations of Poetry and Religion) wrote that he would “crawl across London” if need be to meet Santayana.