SOURCE: "Moral and Social Ideas," in José Martí, Cuban Patriot, University of Florida Press, 1962, pp. 35-58.

In 1962 Gray's book constituted the first significant biography of Martí written in English. In the chapter reprinted below, Gray presents his broad view of Martí and addresses the debate over Martí's status as a philosopher and moralist.

The ideas of José Martí are disorganized and contradictory. The task of running down and bringing order to this mass of data is beyond the scope of this study.¹ At most, perhaps, one is limited to a judicious selection of Martian thoughts which can be considered most representative of Martí, with the uneasy reservation that in such an enormous and undigested amount of data better selections might have been chosen to point up similar conclusions, or worse still, to arrive at opposite ones. There is no denying that the prolixity of Marti" s writings...