Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic by Benedetto Croce

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Croce is far above any personal animus, although the same cannot be said
of those he criticizes. These, like d'Annunzio, whose limitations he
points out--his egoism, his lack of human sympathy--are often very
bitter, and accuse the penetrating critic of want of courtesy. This
seriousness of purpose runs like a golden thread through all Croce's
work. The flimsy superficial remarks on poetry and fiction which too
often pass for criticism in England (Scotland is a good deal more
thorough) are put to shame by _La Critica_, the study of which I commend
to all readers who read or wish to read Italian.[3] They will find in
its back numbers a complete picture of a century of Italian literature,
besides a store-house of philosophical criticism. The _Quarterly_ and
_Edinburgh Reviews_ are our only journals which can be compared to _The
Critica_, and they are less exhaustive on the philosophical side. We
should have to add to these _Mind_ and the _Hibbert Journal_ to get even
an approximation to the scope of the Italian review.

As regards Croce's general philosophical position, it is important to
understand that he is _not_ a Hegelian, in the sense of being a close
follower of that philosopher. One of his last works is that in which he
deals in a masterly manner with the philosophy of Hegel. The title may
be translated, "What is living and what is dead of the philosophy of
Hegel." Here he explains to us the Hegelian system more clearly than
that wondrous edifice was ever before explained, and we realize at the
same time that Croce is quite as independent of Hegel as of Kant, of
Vico as of Spinoza. Of course he has made use of the best of Hegel, just
as every thinker makes use of his predecessors and is in his turn made
use of by those that follow him. But it is incorrect to accuse of
Hegelianism the author of an anti-hegelian _Aesthetic_, of a _Logic_
where Hegel is only half accepted, and of a _Philosophy of the
Practical_, which contains hardly a trace of Hegel. I give an instance.
If the great conquest of Hegel be the dialectic of opposites, his great
mistake lies in the confusion of opposites with things which are
distinct but not opposite. If, says Croce, we take as an example the
application of the Hegelian triad that formulates becoming (affirmation,
negation and synthesis), we find it applicable for those opposites which
are true and false, good and evil, being and not-being, but _not
applicable_ to things which are distinct but not opposite, such as art
and philosophy, beauty and truth, the useful and the moral. These
confusions led Hegel to talk of the death of art, to conceive as
possible a Philosophy of History, and to the application of the natural
sciences to the absurd task of constructing a Philosophy of Nature.
Croce has cleared away these difficulties by shewing that if from the
meeting of opposites must arise a superior synthesis, such a synthesis
cannot arise from things which are distinct _but not opposite_, since
the former are connected together as superior and inferior, and the
inferior can exist without the superior, but _not vice versa_. Thus we
see how philosophy cannot exist without art, while art, occupying the
lower place, can and does exist without philosophy. This brief example
reveals Croce's independence in dealing with Hegelian problems.

I know of no philosopher more generous than Croce in praise and
elucidation of other workers in the same field, past and present. For
instance, and apart from Hegel, _Kant_ has to thank him for drawing
attention to the marvellous excellence of the _Critique of Judgment_,
generally neglected in favour of the Critiques of _Pure Reason and of
Practical Judgment_; _Baumgarten_ for drawing the attention of the world
to his obscure name and for reprinting his Latin thesis in which the
word _Aesthetic_ occurs for the first time; and _Schleiermacher_ for the
tributes paid to his neglected genius in the History of Aesthetic. _La
Critica_, too, is full of generous appreciation of contemporaries by
Croce and by that profound thinker, Gentile.

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 (the
original of our Punch), 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."

There can be no doubt of the great value of Croce's work as an
_educative influence_, and if we are to judge of a philosophical system
by its action on others, then we must place the _Philosophy of the
Spirit_ very high. It may be said with perfect truth that since the
death of the poet Carducci there has been no influence in Italy to
compare with that of Benedetto Croce.

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 Café would have been
to ruin it altogether.

Of the popularity that his system and teaching have already attained we
may judge by the fact that the _Aesthetic_[4], despite the difficulty of
the subject, is already in its third edition in Italy, where, owing to
its influence, philosophy sells better than fiction; while the French
and Germans, not to mention the Czechs, have long had translations of
the earlier editions. His _Logic_ is on the point of appearing in its
second edition, and I have no doubt that the _Philosophy of the
Practical_ will eventually equal these works in popularity. _The
importance and value of Italian thought have been too long neglected in
Great Britain_. Where, as in Benedetto Croce, we get the clarity of
vision of the Latin, joined to the thoroughness and erudition of the
best German tradition, we have a combination of rare power and
effectiveness, which can by no means be neglected.

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.

Thus I conclude these brief remarks upon the author of the _Aesthetic_,
confident that those who give time and attention to its study will be
grateful for having placed in their hands this pearl of great price from
the diadem of the antique Parthenope.

DOUGLAS AINSLIE.

THE ATHENAEUM, PALL MALL, _May_ 1909.

[1] Napoli, Riccardo Ricciardi, 1909.

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

[3] _La Critica_ is published every other month by Laterza of Bari.

[4] This translation is made from the third Italian edition (Bari,
1909), enlarged and corrected by the author. The _Theory of
Aesthetic_ first appeared in 1900 in the form of a communication
to the _Accademia Pontiana_ of Naples, vol. xxx. The first edition
is dated 1902, the second 1904 (Palermo).

I

INTUITION AND EXPRESSION

[Sidenote] _Intuitive knowledge._

Human knowledge has two forms: it is either intuitive knowledge or
logical knowledge; knowledge obtained through the imagination or
knowledge obtained through the intellect; knowledge of the individual or
knowledge of the universal; of individual things or of the relations
between them: it is, in fact, productive either of images or of
concepts.

In ordinary life, constant appeal is made to intuitive knowledge. It
is said to be impossible to give expression to certain truths; that
they are not demonstrable by syllogisms; that they must be learnt
intuitively. The politician finds fault with the abstract reasoner, who
is without a lively knowledge of actual conditions; the pedagogue
insists upon the necessity of developing the intuitive faculty in the
pupil before everything else; the critic in judging a work of art makes
it a point of honour to set aside theory and abstractions, and to judge
it by direct intuition; the practical man professes to live rather by
intuition than by reason.

But this ample acknowledgment, granted to intuitive knowledge in
ordinary life, does not meet with an equal and adequate acknowledgment
in the field of theory and of philosophy. There exists a very ancient
science of intellective knowledge, admitted by all without discussion,
namely, Logic; but a science of intuitive knowledge is timidly and with
difficulty admitted by but a few. Logical knowledge has appropriated the
lion's share; and if she does not quite slay and devour her companion,
yet yields to her with difficulty the humble little place of maidservant
or doorkeeper. What, it says, is intuitive knowledge without the light
of intellective knowledge? It is a servant without a master; and though
a master find a servant useful, the master is a necessity to the
servant, since he enables him to gain his livelihood. Intuition is
blind; Intellect lends her eyes.

[Sidenote] _Its independence in respect to intellective knowledge._

Now, the first point to be firmly fixed in the mind is that intuitive
knowledge has no need of a master, nor to lean upon any one; she does
not need to borrow the eyes of others, for she has most excellent eyes
of her own. Doubtless it is possible to find concepts mingled with
intuitions. But in many other intuitions there is no trace of such a
mixture, which proves that it is not necessary. The impression of a
moonlight scene by a painter; the outline of a country drawn by a
cartographer; a musical motive, tender or energetic; the words of a
sighing lyric, or those with which we ask, command and lament in
ordinary life, may well all be intuitive facts without a shadow of
intellective relation. But, think what one may of these instances, and
admitting further that one may maintain that the greater part of the
intuitions of civilized man are impregnated with concepts, there yet
remains to be observed something more important and more conclusive.
Those concepts which are found mingled and fused with the intuitions,
are no longer concepts, in so far as they are really mingled and fused,
for they have lost all independence and autonomy. They have been
concepts, but they have now become simple elements of intuition.
The philosophical maxims placed in the mouth of a personage of tragedy
or of comedy, perform there the function, not of concepts, but of
characteristics of such personage; in the same way as the red in a
painted figure does not there represent the red colour of the
physicists, but is a characteristic element of the portrait. The whole
it is that determines the quality of the parts. A work of art may be
full of philosophical concepts; it may contain them in greater
abundance and they may be there even more profound than in a
philosophical dissertation, which in its turn may be rich to
overflowing with descriptions and intuitions. But, notwithstanding all
these concepts it may contain, the result of the work of art is an
intuition; and notwithstanding all those intuitions, the result of the
philosophical dissertation is a concept. The _Promessi Sposi_ contains
copious ethical observations and distinctions, but it does not for
that reason lose in its total effect its character of simple story, of
intuition. In like manner the anecdotes and satirical effusions which
may be found in the works of a philosopher like Schopenhauer, do not
remove from those works their character of intellective treatises. The
difference between a scientific work and a work of art, that is,
between an intellective fact and an intuitive fact lies in the result,
in the diverse effect aimed at by their respective authors. This it is
that determines and rules over the several parts of each.

[Sidenote] _Intuition and perception._

But to admit the independence of intuition as regards concept does not
suffice to give a true and precise idea of intuition. Another error
arises among those who recognize this, or who, at any rate, do not make
intuition explicitly dependent upon the intellect. This error obscures
and confounds the real nature of intuition. By intuition is frequently
understood the _perception_ or knowledge of actual reality, the
apprehension of something as _real_.

Certainly perception is intuition: the perception of the room in which I
am writing, of the ink-bottle and paper that are before me, of the pen I
am using, of the objects that I touch and make use of as instruments of
my person, which, if it write, therefore exists;--these are all
intuitions. But the image that is now passing through my brain of a me
writing in another room, in another town, with different paper, pen and
ink, is also an intuition. This means that the distinction between
reality and non-reality is extraneous, secondary, to the true nature of
intuition. If we assume the existence of a human mind which should have
intuitions for the first time, it would seem that it could have
intuitions of effective reality only, that is to say, that it could have
perceptions of nothing but the real. But if the knowledge of reality be
based upon the distinction between real images and unreal images, and if
this distinction does not originally exist, these intuitions would in
truth not be intuitions either of the real or of the unreal, but pure
intuitions. Where all is real, nothing is real. The child, with its
difficulty of distinguishing true from false, history from fable, which
are all one to childhood, can furnish us with a sort of very vague and
only remotely approximate idea of this ingenuous state. Intuition is the
indifferentiated unity of the perception of the real and of the simple
image of the possible. In our intuitions we do not oppose ourselves to
external reality as empirical beings, but we simply objectify our
impressions, whatever they be.

[Sidenote] _Intuition and the concepts of space and time._

Those, therefore, who look upon intuition as sensation formed and
arranged simply according to the categories of space and time, would
seem to approximate more nearly to the truth. Space and time (they say)
are the forms of intuition; to have intuitions is to place in space and
in temporal sequence. Intuitive activity would then consist in this
double and concurrent function of spatiality and temporality. But for
these two categories must be repeated what was said of intellectual
distinctions, found mingled with intuitions. We have intuitions without
space and without time: a tint of sky and a tint of sentiment, an Ah! of
pain and an effort of will, objectified in consciousness. These are
intuitions, which we possess, and with their making, space and time have
nothing to do. In some intuitions, spatiality may be found without
temporality, in others, this without that; and even where both are
found, they are perceived by posterior reflexion: they can be fused with
the intuition in like manner with all its other elements: that is, they
are in it _materialiter_ and not _formaliter_, as ingredients and not as
essentials. Who, without a similar act of interruptive reflexion, is
conscious of temporal sequence while listening to a story or a piece of
music? That which intuition reveals in a work of art is not space and
time, but character, individual physiognomy. Several attempts may be
noted in modern philosophy, which confirm the view here exposed. Space
and time, far from being very simple and primitive functions, are shown
to be intellectual constructions of great complexity. And further, even
in some of those who do not altogether deny to space and time the
quality of forming or of categories and functions, one may observe the
attempt to unify and to understand them in a different manner from that
generally maintained in respect of these categories. Some reduce
intuition to the unique category of spatiality, maintaining that time
also can only be conceived in terms of space. Others abandon the three
dimensions of space as not philosophically necessary, and conceive the
function of spatiality as void of every particular spatial
determination. But what could such a spatial function be, that should
control even time? May it not be a residuum of criticisms and of
negations from which arises merely the necessity to posit a generic
intuitive activity? And is not this last truly determined, when one
unique function is attributed to it, not spatializing nor temporalizing,
but characterizing? Or, better, when this is conceived as itself a
category or function, which gives knowledge of things in their
concretion and individuality?

[Sidenote] _Intuition and sensation._

Having thus freed intuitive knowledge from any suggestion of
intellectualism and from every posterior and external adjunct, we must
now make clear and determine its limits from another side and from a
different kind of invasion and confusion. On the other side, and before
the inferior boundary, is sensation, formless matter, which the spirit
can never apprehend in itself, in so far as it is mere matter. This it
can only possess with form and in form, but postulates its concept as,
precisely, a limit. Matter, in its abstraction, is mechanism, passivity;
it is what the spirit of man experiences, but does not produce. Without
it no human knowledge and activity is possible; but mere matter produces
animality, whatever is brutal and impulsive in man, not the spiritual
dominion, which is humanity. How often do we strive to understand
clearly what is passing within us? We do catch a glimpse of something,
but this does not appear to the mind as objectified and formed. In such
moments it is, that we best perceive the profound difference between
matter and form. These are not two acts of ours, face to face with one
another; but we assault and carry off the one that is outside us, while
that within us tends to absorb and make its own that without. Matter,
attacked and conquered by form, gives place to concrete form. It is the
matter, the content, that differentiates one of our intuitions from
another: form is constant: it is spiritual activity, while matter is
changeable. Without matter, however, our spiritual activity would not
leave its abstraction to become concrete and real, this or that
spiritual content, this or that definite intuition.

It is a curious fact, characteristic of our times, that this very form,
this very activity of the spirit, which is essentially ourselves, is so
easily ignored or denied. Some confound the spiritual activity of man
with the metaphorical and mythological activity of so-called nature,
which is mechanism and has no resemblance to human activity, save when
we imagine, with Aesop, that _arbores loquuntur non tantum ferae_. Some
even affirm that they have never observed in themselves this
"miraculous" activity, as though there were no difference, or only one
of quantity, between sweating and thinking, feeling cold and the energy
of the will. Others, certainly with greater reason, desire to unify
activity and mechanism in a more general concept, though admitting that
they are specifically distinct. Let us, however, refrain for the moment
from examining if such a unification be possible, and in what sense, but
admitting that the attempt may be made, it is clear that to unify two
concepts in a third implies a difference between the two first. And here
it is this difference that is of importance and we set it in relief.

[Sidenote] _Intuition and association._

Intuition has often been confounded with simple sensation. But, since
this confusion is too shocking to good sense, it has more frequently
been attenuated or concealed with a phraseology which seems to wish to
confuse and to distinguish them at the same time. Thus, it has been
asserted that intuition is sensation, but not so much simple sensation
as _association_ of sensations. The equivoque arises precisely from the
word "association." Association is understood, either as memory,
mnemonic association, conscious recollection, and in that case is
evident the absurdity of wishing to join together in memory elements
which are not intuified, distinguished, possessed in some way by the
spirit and produced by consciousness: or it is understood as association
of unconscious elements. In this case we remain in the world of
sensation and of nature. Further, if with certain associationists we
speak of an association which is neither memory nor flux of sensations,
but is a _productive_ association (formative, constructive,
distinguishing); then we admit the thing itself and deny only its name.
In truth, productive association is no longer association in the sense
of the sensualists, but _synthesis_, that is to say, spiritual activity.
Synthesis may be called association; but with the concept of
productivity is already posited the distinction between passivity and
activity, between sensation and intuition.

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