Aesops Fables | Page 4

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.
I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and
when I looked at the second edition of the Estetica, with his inscription,
I was sure of it.
These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the Estetica
originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed
into friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's

other work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the Aesthetic.
For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I have
made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G.
Prezzolini.[1]
First, then, it will be well to point out that the Aesthetic forms part of a
complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the general
title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The Aesthetic is the first of the three
volumes. The second is the Logic, the third the Philosophy of the
Practical.
In the Logic, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false
conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology,
makes claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The
thesis of the pure concept cannot be discussed here. It is connected with
the logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic
which contains in itself the interpretation and the continuity of reality.
Bergson in his L'Evolution Créatrice deals with logic in a somewhat
similar manner. I recently heard him lecture on the distinction between
spirit and matter at the Collège de France, and those who read French
and Italian will find that both Croce's Logic and the book above
mentioned by the French philosopher will amply repay their labour.
The conception of nature as something lying outside the spirit which
informs it, as the non-being which aspires to being, underlies all
Croce's thought, and we find constant reference to it throughout his
philosophical system.
With regard to the third volume, the Philosophy of the Practical, it is
impossible here to give more than a hint of its treasures. I merely refer
in passing to the treatment of the will, which is posited as a unity
inseparable from the volitional act. For Croce there is no difference
between action and intention, means and end: they are one thing,
inseparable as the intuition-expression of Aesthetic. The Philosophy of
the Practical is a logic and science of the will, not a normative science.
Just as in Aesthetic the individuality of expression made models and
rules impossible, so in practical life the individuality of action removes
the possibility of catalogues of virtues, of the exact application of laws,

of the existence of practical judgments and judgments of value previous
to action.
The reader will probably ask here: But what, then, becomes of morality?
The question will be found answered in the Theory of Aesthetic, and I
will merely say here that Croce's