This book is the account of the life and activity of one who is
living and acting. Herodotus tells us the Greeks had a proverb which
forbade them to pronounce any man happy before he is dead. We may
certainly take his warning to this extent,--that we should refrain
from attempting to fix a philosopher's thought so long as he continues
to think. Benedetto Croce has, it is true, presented his Philosophy
of Mind in such "questionable shape," that it gives the student the
impression of finality, the feeling that a doctrine which throughout
the history of philosophy has been struggling for expression has now
at last come to light. But this appearance of finality is due to a
certain artistic power which Croce possesses in an eminent degree, the
power of reliving the past and making history interpret life. Beneath
all his systematization there is the germ of a new life, a new life,
which, will take form in new problems. While then we may say that no
living philosopher has given so complete an appearance of finality to
his doctrine as Croce has done in his _Philosophy of Mind_ it is really
the reflection of a work of art which serves only to conceal the living
thought.
The publishers of this Introduction to the philosophy of Benedetto
Croce by Dr. Raffaello Piccoli have courteously invited me to write
this foreword inasmuch as I was the first to introduce this philosophy,
otherwise than by translations, to the attention of English students. I
do so very gladly. My own work was confined to the purely philosophical
writings, my interest in them having been first aroused by the striking
address on Æsthetic delivered by Croce to the International Congress of
Philosophy at Heidelberg in 1908. When I wrote my book, the _Philosophy
of Mind_ consisted of three volumes, the _Estetica_, the _Logica_,
and the _Pratica_, but before I had completed my account I read in
Croce's Journal Critica the announcement of the forthcoming publication
of the fourth volume on the _Theory and History of the Writing of
History_. Croce had, it seemed to me, closed his book on _Practice_
with the plain indication, not that he had solved every philosophical
problem, nor that philosophy was not an external problem, but that
he had given an exhaustive account of the stages or degrees in their
order as moments of the developing life of the mind, and that outside
these degrees there were no others. The new work did not, indeed,
either negative or qualify this conclusion, but it bore evidence of the
ceaseless activity of his mind. Are we then, because the philosophy of
Croce is still developing, to refrain from the attempt to interpret
it on the ground that any meaning we may find in it is indefinite and
insecure? Certainly not, for a philosopher's thinking unfolds and
develops like a living thing, it is not constructed like a building,
nor does it rest on foundations which may be unsound.
Dr. Raffaello Piccoli, a professor in the University of Pisa, and
the author of this book, was born in Naples, Croce's city, in 1886.
He himself as a young student came under the personal spell of the
philosopher he writes about, and grew up in the intellectual atmosphere
which his philosophy was creating. To this great advantage he has added
another, for first in Australia, and later in the Universities of
England and America he has acquired a perfect command of our language
and a thorough knowledge of our philosophy. He is specially qualified,
therefore, to give a first-hand account of Croce's literary and
philosophical activity, and the kind of influence it has had in forming
the mind of Modern Italy.
The author has not confined himself to an exposition of the philosophy
of Croce in its narrow and technical meaning, he has given us an
account of the whole of his literary and historical activity. He
has traced the origin of his philosophy in the circumstances of his
parentage, early life and education, and has followed biographically
the formation of his philosophical theories and the direction of his
philosophical interest. He has shown how his general trend of thought,
his literary tastes and historical studies without any professional
spur, by the very nature and force of the problems with which they
confronted him, led to philosophy as the dominant and culminating
interest of life.
Philosophers and philosophies have had in our generation to undergo the
trial of a fiery furnace. The Great War and the passions aroused by
it and the estrangement between nations nurtured in the same Western
culture have been a fierce test of principles. In regard to every
great leader we ask first how he reacted to the conflicting emotions
of the international struggle. Dr. Piccoli has dealt with this latest
and crucial period of Croce's activity in a very sympathetic spirit.
Croce's attitude at one time exposed him to an extreme unpopularity.
This was largely the result of misunderstanding. He has come through
the ordeal with enhanced reputation. This, at least, is the author's
judgment--the judgment of one who himself fought and suffered severely
in the War.
The two great achievements of Croce are in the domain of æsthetical and
ethical theory. Dr. Piccoli shows us each doctrine in its historical
origin and in its relation to contemporary philosophy. The first is
a reaction against the intellectualism of Hegel. In its affirmation
of intuition it is in rather striking agreement with the philosophy
of Bergson, although as Croce's approach is from the side of art
and literature, and not like Bergson's from the study of biological
science, it rather supplements than elucidates Bergson's theory.
The second is a reaction against the school of Karl Marx and its
materialistic interpretation of history.
At the present time Croce is directing his criticism on the new line of
development which his own friends and colleagues are taking in regard
to his own principles, in particular to the "actual idealism" of his
colleague Professor Giovanni Gentile. To Croce this new doctrine spells
mysticism, and of mysticism in all its forms he is the open enemy. On
this point we may, I think, detect an inclination on the part of Dr.
Piccoli to disagree with Croce. It will be seen, therefore, that we
have in this book a very full and a very welcome account, brought right
up to date, of one who is, as far as contemporaries can judge, forming
the mind of the present age.