Aesops Fables | Page 6

of fact, Mr. Bosanquet reveals his ignorance of the greater
part of the contribution to Aesthetic made by the Neo-Latin races,
which the reader of this book will recognize as of first-rate importance.
This thoroughness it is which gives such importance to the literary and
philosophical criticisms of La Critica. Croce's method is always
historical, and his object in approaching any work of art is to classify
the spirit of its author, as expressed in that work. There are, he
maintains, but two things to be considered in criticizing a book. These
are, firstly, what is its peculiarity, in what way is it singular, how is it
differentiated from other works? Secondly, what is its degree of
purity?--That is, to what extent has its author kept himself free from all
considerations alien to the perfection of the work as an expression, as a
lyrical intuition? With the answering of these questions Croce is
satisfied. He does not care to know if the author keep a motor-car, like
Maeterlinck; or prefer to walk on Putney Heath, like Swinburne. This
amounts to saying that all works of art must be judged by their own
standard. How far has the author succeeded in doing what he intended?
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