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INTRODUCTION

THEORY

I INTUITION AND EXPRESSION

Intuitive knowledge--Its independence in respect to the intellect-- Intuition and perception--Intuition and the concepts of space and time--Intuition and sensation--Intuition and association--Intuition and representation--Intuition and expression--Illusions as to their difference--Identity of intuition and expression.

II INTUITION AND ART

Corollaries and explanations--Identity of art and of intuitive knowledge-- No specific difference--No difference of intensity--Difference extensive and empirical--Artistic genius--Content and form in Aesthetic--Critique of the imitation of nature and of the artistic illusion--Critique of art conceived as a sentimental, not a theoretic fact--The origin of Aesthetic, and sentiment--Critique of the theory of Aesthetic senses--Unity and indivisibility of the work of art--Art as deliverer.

Indissolubility of intellective and of intuitive knowledge--Critique of the negations of this thesis--Art and science--Content and form: another meaning. Prose and poetry--The relation of first and second degree--Inexistence of other cognoscitive forms--Historicity--Identity and difference in respect of art--Historical criticism--Historical scepticism--Philosophy as perfect science. The so-called natural sciences, and their limits--The phenomenon and the noumenon.

IV HISTORICISM AND INTELLECTUALISM IN AESTHETIC

Critique of the verisimilar and of naturalism--Critique of ideas in art, of art as thesis, and of the typical--Critique of the symbol and of the allegory--Critique of the theory of artistic and literary categories--Errors derived from this theory in judgments on art-- Empirical meaning of the divisions of the categories.

V ANALOGOUS ERRORS IN HISTORY AND IN LOGIC

Critique of the philosophy of History--Aesthetic invasions of Logic-- Logic in its essence--Distinction between logical and non-logical judgments--The syllogism--False Logic and true Aesthetic--Logic reformed.

VI THEORETIC AND PRACTICAL ACTIVITY

The will--The will as ulterior grade in respect of knowledge--Objections and explanations--Critique of practical judgments or judgments of value--Exclusion of the practical from the aesthetic--Critique of the theory of the end of art and of the choice of content--Practical innocence of art--Independence of art--Critique of the saying: the style is the man--Critique of the concept of sincerity in art.

The two forms of practical activity--The economically useful-- Distinction between the useful and the technical--Distinction between the useful and the egoistic--Economic and moral volition--Pure economicity--The economic side of morality--The merely economical and the error of the morally indifferent--Critique of utilitarianism and the reform of Ethic and of Economic--Phenomenon and noumenon in practical activity.

The system of the spirit--The forms of genius--Inexistence of a fifth form of activity--Law; sociality--Religiosity--Metaphysic--Mental imagination and the intuitive intellect--Mystical Aesthetic--Mortality and immortality of art.

The characteristics of art--Inexistence of modes of expression-- Impossibility of translations--Critique of rhetorical categories-- Empirical meaning of rhetorical categories--Their use as synonyms of the aesthetic fact--Their use as indicating various aesthetic imperfections--Their use as transcending the aesthetic fact, and in the service of science--Rhetoric in schools--Similarities of expressions--Relative possibility of translations.

X AESTHETIC SENTIMENTS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE UGLY

Various meanings of the word sentiment--Sentiment as activity-- Identification of sentiment with economic activity--Critique of hedonism--Sentiment as concomitant of every form of activity--Meaning of certain ordinary distinctions of sentiments--Value and disvalue: the contraries and their union--The beautiful as the value of expression, or expression without adjunct--The ugly and the elements of beauty that constitute it--Illusion that there exist expressions neither beautiful nor ugly--Proper aesthetic sentiments and concomitant and accidental sentiments--Critique of apparent sentiments.

Critique of the beautiful as what pleases the superior senses--Critique of the theory of play--Critique of the theory of sexuality and of the triumph--Critique of the Aesthetic of the sympathetic--Meaning in it of content and of form--Aesthetic hedonism and moralism--The rigoristic negation, and the pedagogic negation of art--Critique of pure beauty.

Pseudo-aesthetic concepts, and the Aesthetic of the sympathetic-- Critique of the theory of the ugly in art and of its surmounting-- Pseudo-aesthetic concepts appertain to Psychology--Impossibility of rigorous definitions of these--Examples: definitions of the sublime, of the comic, of the humorous--Relation between those concepts and aesthetic concepts.

Aesthetic activity and physical concepts--Expression in the aesthetic sense, and expression in the naturalistic sense--Intuitions and memory--The production of aids to memory--The physically beautiful-- Content and form: another meaning--Natural beauty and artificial beauty--Mixed beauty--Writings--The beautiful that is free and that which is not free--Critique of the beautiful that is not free-- Stimulants of production.

Critique of aesthetic associationism--Critique of aesthetic physic-- Critique of the theory of the beauty of the human body--Critique of the beauty of geometrical figures--Critique of another aspect of the imitation of nature--Critique of the theory of the elementary forms of the beautiful--Critique of the search for the objective conditions of the beautiful--The astrology of Aesthetic.

The practical activity of externalization--The technique of externalization--Technical theories of single arts--Critique of the classifications of the arts--Relation of the activity of externalization with utility and morality.

Aesthetic judgment. Its identity with aesthetic reproduction-- Impossibility of divergences--Identity of taste and genius--Analogy with the other activities--Critique of absolutism and of aesthetic relativism--Critique of relative relativism--Objections founded on the variation of the stimulus and of the psychic disposition-- Critique of the distinction of signs as natural and conventional--The surmounting of variety--Restorations and historical interpretation.

Historical criticism in literature and art. Its importance--Artistic and literary history. Its distinction from historical criticism and from the aesthetic judgment--The method of artistic and literary history--Critique of the problem of the origin of art--The criterion of progress and history--Inexistence of a single line of progress in artistic and literary history--Errors in respect of this law--Other meanings of the word "progress" in relation to Aesthetic.

Summary of the inquiry--Identity of Linguistic with Aesthetic-- Aesthetic formulation of linguistic problems. Nature of language-- Origin of language and its development--Relation between Grammatic and Logic--Grammatical categories or parts of speech--Individuality of speech and the classification of languages--Impossibility of a normative Grammatic--Didactic organisms--Elementary linguistic elements, or roots--The aesthetic judgment and the model language-- Conclusion.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

Aesthetic ideas in Graeco-Roman antiquity--In the Middle Age and at the Renaissance--Fermentation of thought in the seventeenth century--Aesthetic ideas in Cartesianism, Leibnitzianism, and in the "Aesthetic" of Baumgarten--G.B. Vico--Aesthetic doctrines in the eighteenth century--Emmanuel Kant--The Aesthetic of Idealism with Schiller and Hegel--Schopenhauer and Herbart--Friedrich Schleiermacher--The philosophy of language with Humboldt and Steinthal--Aesthetic in France, England, and Italy during the first half of the nineteenth century--Francesco de Sanctis--The Aesthetic of the epigoni--Positivism and aesthetic naturalism--Aesthetic psychologism and other recent tendencies--Glance at the history of certain particular doctrines--Conclusion.

Translation of the lecture on Pure Intuition and the lyrical nature of art, delivered by Benedetto Croce before the International Congress of Philosophy at Heidelberg.

INTRODUCTION

There are always Americas to be discovered: the most interesting in Europe.

I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique Parthenope.

Croce's America cannot be expressed in geographical terms. It is more important than any space of mountain and river, of forest and dale. It belongs to the kingdom of the spirit, and has many provinces. That province which most interests me, I have striven in the following pages to annex to the possessions of the Anglo-Saxon race; an act which cannot be blamed as predatory, since it may be said of philosophy more truly than of love, that "to divide is not to take away."

The Historical Summary will show how many a brave adventurer has navigated the perilous seas of speculation upon Art, how Aristotle's marvellous insight gave him glimpses of its beauty, how Plato threw away its golden fruit, how Baumgarten sounded the depth of its waters, Kant sailed along its coast without landing, and Vico hoisted the Italian flag upon its shore.

It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher of Aesthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of Aquila , is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses sailed, and where sometimes yet we may hear the Syrens sing their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world.

Seeming to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, he solved it not--only delighted with pure pleasure of poetry and of subtle thought as he led one along the pathways of his Enchanted Garden, where I shall always love to tread.

Oscar Wilde, too, I had often heard at his best, the most brilliant talker of our time, his wit flashing in the spring sunlight of Oxford luncheon-parties as now in his beautiful writings, like the jewelled rapier of Mercutio. But his works, too, will be searched in vain by the seeker after definite aesthetic truth.

The solution of the problem of Aesthetic is not in the gift of the Muses.

In response to his invitation, I made my way, on a sunny day in November, past the little shops of the coral-vendors that surround, like a necklace, the Rione de la Bellezza, and wound zigzag along the over-crowded Toledo. I knew that Signor Croce lived in the old part of the town, but had hardly anticipated so remarkable a change as I experienced on passing beneath the great archway and finding myself in old Naples. This has already been described elsewhere, and I will not here dilate upon this world within a world, having so much of greater interest to tell in a brief space. I will merely say that the costumes here seemed more picturesque, the dark eyes flashed more dangerously than elsewhere, there was a quaint life, an animation about the streets, different from anything I had known before. As I climbed the lofty stone steps of the Palazzo to the floor where dwells the philosopher of Aesthetic I felt as though I had stumbled into the eighteenth century and were calling on Giambattista Vico. After a brief inspection by a young man with the appearance of a secretary, I was told that I was expected, and admitted into a small room opening out of the hall. Thence, after a few moments' waiting, I was led into a much larger room. The walls were lined all round with bookcases, barred and numbered, filled with volumes forming part of the philosopher's great library. I had not long to wait. A door opened behind me on my left, and a rather short, thick-set man advanced to greet me, and pronouncing my name at the same time with a slight foreign accent, asked me to be seated beside him. After the interchange of a few brief formulae of politeness in French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas of the unknown.

This incident is illustrative of the sincerity and good faith of Benedetto Croce. One knows him to be severe for the faults and weaknesses of others, merciless for his own.

But it is not only philosophers who have reason to be grateful to Croce for his untiring zeal and diligence. Historians, economists, poets, actors, and writers of fiction have been rescued from their undeserved limbo by this valiant Red Cross knight, and now shine with due brilliance in the circle of their peers. It must also be admitted that a large number of false lights, popular will o' the wisps, have been ruthlessly extinguished with the same breath. For instance, Karl Marx, the socialist theorist and agitator, finds in Croce an exponent of his views, in so far as they are based upon the truth, but where he blunders, his critic immediately reveals the origin and nature of his mistakes. Croce's studies in Economic are chiefly represented by his work, the title of which may be translated "Historical Materialism and Marxist Economic."

To indicate the breadth and variety of Croce's work I will mention the further monograph on the sixteenth century Neapolitan Pulcinella , and the personage of the Neapolitan in comedy, a monument of erudition and of acute and of lively dramatic criticism, that would alone have occupied an ordinary man's activity for half a lifetime. One must remember, however, that Croce's average working day is of ten hours. His interest is concentrated on things of the mind, and although he sits on several Royal Commissions, such as those of the Archives of all Italy and of the monument to King Victor Emmanuel, he has taken no university degree, and much dislikes any affectation of academic superiority. He is ready to meet any one on equal terms and try with them to get at the truth on any subject, be it historical, literary, or philosophical. "Truth," he says, "is democratic," and I can testify that the search for it, in his company, is very stimulating. As is well said by Prezzolini, "He has a new word for all."

His dislike of Academies and of all forms of prejudice runs parallel with his breadth and sympathy with all forms of thought. His activity in the present is only equalled by his reverence for the past. Naples he loves with the blind love of the child for its parent, and he has been of notable assistance to such Neapolitan talent as is manifested in the works of Salvatore di Giacomo, whose best poems are written in the dialect of Naples, or rather in a dialect of his own, which Croce had difficulty in persuading the author always to retain. The original jet of inspiration having been in dialect, it is clear that to amend this inspiration at the suggestion of wiseacres at the Caf? would have been to ruin it altogether.

The philosopher feels that he has a great mission, which is nothing less than the leading back of thought to belief in the spirit, deserted by so many for crude empiricism and positivism. His view of philosophy is that it sums up all the higher human activities, including religion, and that in proper hands it is able to solve any problem. But there is no finality about problems: the solution of one leads to the posing of another, and so on. Man is the maker of life, and his spirit ever proceeds from a lower to a higher perfection. Connected with this view of life is Croce's dislike of "Modernism." When once a problem has been correctly solved, it is absurd to return to the same problem. Roman Catholicism cannot march with the times. It can only exist by being conservative--its only Logic is to be illogical. Therefore, Croce is opposed to Loisy and Neo-Catholicism, and supports the Encyclical against Modernism. The Catholic religion, with its great stores of myth and morality, which for many centuries was the best thing in the world, is still there for those who are unable to assimilate other food. Another instance of his dislike for Modernism is his criticism of Pascoli, whose attempts to reveal enigmas in the writings of Dante he looks upon as useless. We do not, he says, read Dante in the twentieth century for his hidden meanings, but for his revealed poetry.

I believe that Croce will one day be recognized as one of the very few great teachers of humanity. At present he is not appreciated at nearly his full value. One rises from a study of his philosophy with a sense of having been all the time as it were in personal touch with the truth, which is very far from the case after the perusal of certain other philosophies.

Croce has been called the philosopher-poet, and if we take philosophy as Novalis understood it, certainly Croce does belong to the poets, though not to the formal category of those who write in verse. Croce is at any rate a born philosopher, and as every trade tends to make its object prosaic, so does every vocation tend to make it poetic. Yet no one has toiled more earnestly than Croce. "Thorough" might well be his motto, and if to-day he is admitted to be a classic without the stiffness one connects with that term, be sure he has well merited the designation. His name stands for the best that Italy has to give the world of serious, stimulating thought. I know nothing to equal it elsewhere.

Secure in his strength, Croce will often introduce a joke or some amusing illustration from contemporary life, in the midst of a most profound and serious argument. This spirit of mirth is a sign of superiority. He who is not sure of himself can spare no energy for the making of mirth. Croce loves to laugh at his enemies and with his friends. So the philosopher of Naples sits by the blue gulf and explains the universe to those who have ears to hear. "One can philosophize anywhere," he says--but he remains significantly at Naples.

DOUGLAS AINSLIE.

Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909.

The reader will find this critique summarized in the historical portion of this volume.

INTUITION AND EXPRESSION

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