Of the two best comprehensive works on Vico published towards the end

of last century one is due to the German Catholic Karl Werner (1881)

who expounds his philosophical and historical doctrines with great

care, judging them from the point of view of speculative theism, a

theory evolved under the influence of Baader and the second philosophy

of Schelling, and tending much more to the comprehension of Vico than

the psychology of Cantoni. The other is the work of an Englishman,

Robert Flint (1884), who wrote for the collection of Philosophical

Classics a brief monograph upon the subject, accurate in detail, and

if not profound at least guided by clear and sound sense. Recently

Sorel in France has shown the fruitfulness of certain views of Vico's,

especially that of the reflux, by applying them to the history of

primitive Christianity and the theory of the modern proletarian

movement, while in Germany Biese and Mauthner have brought his

conceptions of metaphor and language once more into favour.

But in spite of all this Vico has never had justice done him in works

devoted to the history of modern philosophy. These, in the case both

of Höffding's book and of the greatly superior work of Windelband, and

in fact of all others, either pass over the Italian philosopher in

complete silence or else merely mention him as an experimenter, later

than Bossuet and earlier than Herder, in the dubious science of the

"philosophy of history." This lack of attention arises partly from an

insufficient knowledge of Vico's real nature; his fertile activities

in the theory of knowledge, in ethics, in aesthetic, in law and in

religion are all hidden behind that one label "philosopher of history."

Partly however it is due to the reaction of the history of politics

and culture on the history of philosophy; which produces the effect

that thinkers whose social influence came to an end with the fall of

the peoples or states to which they belonged, or who for some reason

or other had no considerable influence on European civilisation, are

sacrificed to others much less important from a philosophical point of

view but more influential or better known as exponents of social life

and representatives of cultural tendencies; so that where it would

be thought impossible to ignore, for example, Paley or d'Holbach or

Mendelssohn, it seems natural to pass over Giambattista Vico, though in

such company he is a giant among pigmies. The historical injustice of

this course has been already shown theoretically by the distinction we

have emphasised between the history of philosophy and the history of

culture; and in Vico's special case by our whole work, which clearly

shows the lacuna left by the omission of Vico in the general history of

European thought at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

[Footnote 1: This appendix briefly recapitulates the chief results of

my researches into the subject set forth in the _Bibliografia vichiana_

and its two supplements (cf. the present volume, _infra,_ p. 310,

to which work I refer for fuller details and for the evidence for the

facts here laid down.]

[Footnote 2: See above, pp. 236, 237.]

[Footnote 3: Labanca has devoted a highly instructive volume to the

Catholic criticisms of Vico: see the present volume, _infra,_ p. 309.]

[Footnote 4: See above, pp. 247-9.]

APPENDIX III

THE SOURCES OF VICO'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE[1]

My statement, that the criterion of knowledge contained in Vico's

formula of the conversion of the true with the created is an original

and modern principle, has been contradicted by certain Catholic

editors; who state that this doctrine, however true, is not original

to Vico, and is indeed far from modern, being a purely Scholastic

doctrine. If I thought otherwise, this was only due to my insufficient

knowledge of Scholasticism.

I might indeed ask at the outset how such complete ignorance of

scholasticism were possible: an ignorance not of its manifold

varieties and the tangled forest of its distinctions--that would be

comprehensible: but of no less a matter than the fundamental criterion

of its theory of knowledge, the starting-point of modern thought and

as such, it would seem, inevitably familiar to every student of the

elements of philosophy. But since it is always useful to suspect

oneself of ignorance, or even to believe oneself more ignorant than

one really is, I will make so far as concerns myself a voluntary

display of humility. I find it less easy, I confess, to extend the

accusation of ignorance to all who, like myself, have failed to run

Vico's criterion to earth in the scholastic lumber-room: Jacobi for

instance, who on reading it as expressed in the _De antiquissima,_ sees

in it the first manifestation of Kantianism and absolute idealism:[2]

or the Catholic theologian Baader, who finds its later development

in Schelling's philosophy of identity:[3] or the learned and subtle

Spanish Thomist, Jaime Balmes, who treats it as a unique idea and

attacks it from the scholastic point of view:[4] or the equally learned

Catholic Bertini, who accepts and develops Jacobi's observation:[5]

or the eminent historian of philosophy Wilhelm Windelband, who, while

unacquainted with Vico's doctrines, on coming across indications of a

similar thought in Sanchez's _Quod nihil scitur_ was greatly struck by

it and endorsed its value by the assertion that it was to bear fruit

at a later date and in the hands of a greater philosopher, Immanuel

Kant:[6] or again the specialist in the history of scholasticism, Karl

Werner, the author of a careful monograph on Vico,[7] who nowhere

notices the alleged scholastic character of Vico's theory of knowledge.

Scholasticism must indeed be a difficult and mysterious doctrine, if it

is inaccessible to all these students, qualified and bound though they

are to understand it.

But we cannot pause on the threshold to speculate: we must plunge

straight into the argument. In what part of scholasticism can we find

Vico's criterion converting knowledge with creation?

The Thomistic saying, "truth and reality are convertible," _ens et

verum convertuntur,_ has been quoted:[8] but quotations of this kind

are perhaps more calculated to confuse by words than to convince by

facts. The same value attaches to the statement that Vico himself

confessed the scholastic origin of his principle, since the very first

chapter of the _De antiquissima_ begins with the words "in Latin,

the truth and the fact reciprocate, or, as the scholastic mob says,

convert," _"Latinis verum et factum reciprocantur, seu, ut scholarum

vulgus loquitur, convertuntur."_ Here it is perfectly clear to any

one on a moment's thought that Vico, Latinist as he was, meant

simply to substitute the Ciceronian "_reciprocari_" for the barbarous

"_converti._"

St. Thomas explained the meaning of his formula quite clearly,

especially in the Summa Theologica, Part I. question xvi. art. 3.

Here he asks whether the truth and the reality are convertible,

_utrum verum et ens convertantur;_ to which he replies as follows:

"that as the good is of the nature of the desirable, so the truth

has the nature of knowledge. But in so far as a thing has existence

in itself, thus far it is knowable. And for this reason it is said

in _De anima,_ Bk. III. text. 37 (431 b 21) that 'the soul is in a

sense all things' according to sense and intellect. And hence as the

good is convertible with the existent, so is the true. But yet as the

good adds to existence the nature of the desirable, so also the truth

adds a reference to the intellect." (_Quod sicut bonum habet rationem

appetibilis, ita verum habet ordinem cognitionis. Unumquodque autem

in quantum habet de esse, in tantum est cognoscibile. Et propter hoc

dicitur in_ 3 _de Anima, text._ 37, _quod 'anima est quodammodo omnia'

secundum sensum et intellectum. Et ideo sicut bonum convertitur cum

ente, ita et verum. Sed tamen sicut bonum addit rationem appetibilis

supra ens, ita et verum comparationem ad intellectum._) Nothing then

can be known except what exists, and nothing can exist but what is

good: existence, truth and goodness are all convertible. Thus, too,

things are called good in so far as they correspond to the idea in

their Creator's mind. "Each single thing partakes of the truth of

its own nature in so far as it imitates the knowledge of God, like

an artefact in so far as it agrees with the art": "the knowledge of

God is the cause of things": "the knowledge of God is the measure of

things." (_Unumquodque in tantum habet de veritate suae natura, in

quantum imitatur Dei scientiam sicut artificiatum in quantum concordat

arti_ I. xiv. 12. _Scientia Dei est causa rerum_ I. xiv. 12. _Scientia

Dei est mensura rerum_ I. xiv. 12.) But truth and goodness, the

objects of intellect and will respectively, if on the one hand they

are "convertible in reality," _convertentur secundum rem,_ on the

other they are "distinguishable in thought," _diversificantur secundum

rationem_ (I. lix. 2). What have these thoughts in common with Vico's

idea that the condition of knowing a truth is to create it? In fact,

what is here stated is that the condition of making a thing is to

know it, or as St. Thomas says in the same place (I. xiv. 8) in St.

Augustine's words (_De Trinitate_ xv. 13) "_Universas creaturas et

spirituelles et corporales non quia sunt ideo novit Deus, sed ideo

sunt quia novit._" (God does not know all His creatures corporeal and

spiritual because they exist: but they exist because He knows them.)

Vico makes no kind of mention of the formula _ens et verum

convertuntur,_ though he knows and quotes--a fact which has escaped my

critics--the analogous phrase "the true and the good are convertible,"

_verum et bonum convertuntur:_[9] a formula which he diverts to his

own purposes, or rather unites it with his own. "In the first place,"

he writes, "I establish a truth which is convertible with the created,

and in this sense I understand the good of the schools, convertible

with existence: and hence I infer that the one and only truth is in

God, since in Him is contained all Creation."[10] This union is reached

quite openly by identifying _verum_ with _factum,_ then _factum_

with _ens,_ and finally the _verum-factum-ens_ with the _bonum_: by

substituting the doctrine of Vico for that of the schools. By such a

method of interpretation one could reduce all doctrines to a single

one, a _perennis philosophia._ I do not say that it would be a method

entirely devoid of truth; but it is certainly not a historical method.

That Vico's criterion is not only different from but inconsistent

with Thomism was shown, as I have already said, by Balmes; who

pronounced it "specious but devoid of solid foundation." He uses St.

Thomas's statements to controvert Vico's theological doctrine that God

understands because He creates, opposing to it the Scholastic view

that He creates because He understands. He denies, that the Word was

conceived by the mere knowledge of what is contained in the divine

omnipotence, for it is conceived not simply by creatures but also and

chiefly by the cognition of the divine essence ("for the Father by

understanding himself and the Son and the Holy Ghost and all other

things embraced by His knowledge conceives the Word, so that thus

the whole Trinity is implied in the Word, and also every creature":

_Pater enim intellegendo se et Filium et Spiritum sanctum et omnia

alia quae ejus scientia continentur concipit Verbum, ut sic tota

Trinitas Verbo dicatur, et etiam omnis creatura);_ he objects that,

granting this criterion, God could never know himself, because He

is not His own cause. He denies that intelligence is only possible

through causality, inasmuch as it is also possible through identity.

He accuses Vico's criterion of involving scepticism: in a word he

maintains that the facts of knowledge are known by reason, even if they

are not the products of reason.[11] I am not concerned to ask whether

Balmes is right, or whether Vico's criterion can be reconciled with

Christian theology. I am concerned merely with establishing, not only

by quotation from St. Thomas but also by the help of the judgment of

an authoritative interpreter of his system that this doctrine is not

Thomistic.

Even granting that the criterion in question is irreconcilable with

Thomism but not with an improved Christian theology, it is certainly

irreconcilable with both in the form it adopts in what I have called

"Vico's second theory of knowledge," in the _Scienza Nuova,_ which

Balmes either did not know or omitted to mention, and is passed over by

my critics with a light-heartedness that is not particularly enviable.

One of them asserts that "the alleged distinction" (the distinction

that is drawn by myself) "between Vico's first and second theories of

knowledge does not in point of fact exist, and produces no effects of

any kind." What? Has it no effects, when those historical studies and

sciences of mind, which in the _De antiquissima_ occupied the lowest

position among mere probabilities became in the _Scienza Nuova_ the

truest of all--true even in a higher degree than mathematics itself

as dealing with the human world which "is man's creation?" when their

form is found "in the modifications of the actual human mind itself?"

when they have "a reality as much greater, as the reality of the laws

of human affairs is greater than that of points, lines, areas and

figures?"[12] Is there no distinction, when we pass from the scepticism

of the _De antiquissima_ to the rationalism of the statement that these

"proofs are of a divine nature," and must produce "a divine pleasure,

since in God to know and to create are one and the same"?[13]

It is true that upon this point my attention has been recalled to a

well-known passage of Galileo (_Dialogo dei massimi sistemi_), an

especial favourite of our own Spaventa,[14] where we find the thought

that the human intellect differs from the divine _extensivè,_ but

not _intensivè,_ and that if the divine intellect knows infinitely

more about mathematical propositions because it knows them all, yet

"of these few facts known by the human intellect, its knowledge is

equal to that of the divine in objective certainty, since it attains

comprehension of the necessity than which no greater certainty, it

seems, can exist." But in any case Galileo was not a Schoolman, and

moreover this pronouncement of his seemed so dangerous to the Christian

theory of ideas, that he himself was obliged to alter it by admitting

that while "so far as the truth of which mathematical proof gives no

knowledge is concerned, this is identical with that which the divine

wisdom knows," yet "the manner, in which God knows the infinitely

numerous propositions of which we know a few, is immensely superior to

our own, which proceeds discursively from one conclusion to another,

while His is simple intuition." It is important too not to forget

that this very statement figures among the heads of the accusation in

Galileo's trial.[15]

If the formula of the conversion of the true with the created is not

found in Thomism, it may perhaps be found, at least in its original,

sceptical or mystical, intention, in other tendencies of scholasticism

or mediaeval philosophy generally. With Thomism Vico seems to have had

neither acquaintance nor sympathy: but from his autobiography it is

plain that he studied nominalism and the summaries of Petrus Hispanus

and Paulus Venetus, though with little profit,[16] and later also,

much more profitably, the Scotist philosophy; which he considered the

most Platonic of the Scholastic systems.[17] Traces of this appear in

several views expressed in the _De antiquissima,_ especially in those

dealing with universals and ideas. In this direction, the direction

that is to say of the Scotist system and the closely allied system of

Occamism, I have attempted various researches, without attaining any

remarkable results: further, I have applied for assistance to various

specialists in Scholasticism, but in vain; they would do nothing

but express their own superficial impressions or lose themselves

in idle disputation. In general it seems possible to say that Duns

Scotus's theory of knowledge presents points of affinity to that of

Vico: for example, in the polemic against the Thomistic doctrine of

the _adaequatio intellectus et rei,_ which he refutes by applying it

to the divine knowledge, since God knows objects as willed by Him,

and they exist because He wills their existence without His being

necessitated by them.[18] For Occam again the thought of objects has

no reality and objectivity (or subjectivity according to the usage of

Scholastic terminology, which is the reverse of modern) in God, and is

nothing else than the objects themselves, known by God according to the

possibility of creating them, in virtue of which they are thinkable

to the divine mind.[19] But the question for Vico is not merely the

priority of creation to knowledge or knowledge to creation, but the

convertibility or identity of knowledge and creation.

In certain recently published philosophical observations by Paolo

Sarpi,[20] a nominalist of Occam's school,[21] the following statements

are to be found. They are the more notable because standing as they

do without any results in Sarpi's thought and being undeveloped in

subsequent philosophy, they seem to be not his own invention but a

mere repetition of scholastic dicta. "We have certain knowledge both

of the existence and of the cause of those things which we understand

fully how to create: of those which we know by experience, we know the

existence, but not the cause. We can however guess at it, and look

simply for a possible cause: but out of many found to be possible

we cannot be certain which is the true one. This fact may be seen

in descriptions of astronomical theories, and would also be true in

the case of a man who saw a clock for the first time. Of the various

guesses, that of a man who knew how to make similar objects would

be nearest the truth, _e.g._ one who understood the construction of

machinery when he saw a different kind of machine: but none the less

he will never on that account[22] know for certain. There are then

three kinds of knowledge: first, knowledge how to make the object:

secondly, experience of it: and thirdly, guessing at possibilities."

This thought, then, namely that objects are known by their creator,

and that God knows objects because He creates them, seems to have been

current in the schools: and this explains the fact of its reappearing

in an incidental manner and as an obvious truth in Francesco Sanchez's

_Quod nihil scitur_ (1581) where it is declared impossible "_perfecte

cognoscere quis quae non creavit; nec Deus creare potuisset nec creata

regere quae non perfecte precognovisset_"[23] (that one should know

perfectly things which he has not created: nor could God have been able

to create nor after creating them to control things which He had not

perfectly foreknown).

But need we continue to look for it in the guise of a casual remark

or an isolated proposition, devoid of philosophical connexion, in the

works of philosophers or the lecture-rooms of the schools? Did it not

simply form a part of the common thought which daily declares that the

man who has made a thing knows it better than he who has not made it?

Probably a little attention would reveal it in many and dissimilar

treatises; and for my own part, while reading the _Chronicon_ of Otto

of Freising the other day, I came across it in the introduction to

the third book, where the chronicler, writing as is well known under

the influence of St. Augustine's _Civitas Dei,_ is arrested by the

objection that God's designs in history are inscrutable, and delivers

himself of the following reflections: "What then shall we do? If we

cannot understand, shall we hold our peace? Then who will reply to

those who flatter, repel those who attack, and by the reason and might

of his words confute those who would destroy the faith that is in us?

So we cannot understand the secret counsels of God, and yet we are

often compelled to give a reasonable account of these things. What?

Shall we reason about things which we do not understand? We can give

reasons, but human reasons, when yet we cannot understand the divine

reasons. And thus it happens that when we speak of theological matters,

lacking the right words for them, we being men use our own words; and

in speaking of so great a God in human language, we use our words the

more boldly _quo ipsum figmentum nostrum cognoscere non dubitamus,_

because we never doubt that we know the thing we have ourselves formed:

_quis enim melius cognoscit quam qui creavit?_ for who knows a thing

better than he who has created it?"[24] The logic of the Abbot of

Freising at this point may be thought a trifle sophistical: but the

fact remains that he refers to a common opinion that he knows things

who has made them.

But probably Vico was stimulated to the establishment of his criterion

less by certain tendencies of Scotism or by current opinions than by

the philosophers of the Renaissance, which he considered the golden

age of metaphysical study, when shone, as he says, "Marsilio Ficino,

Pico della Mirandola, Augustino Nifo and Augustino Steuco, Jacopo

Mazzoni, Alessandro Piccolomini, Matteo Acquaviva and Francesco

Patrizio."[25] In Ficino, whose name he couples with those of Plato

and Plotinus,[26] and especially in his _Theologia Platonica,_ Vico

could read a magnificent description of the productive character of

the divine wisdom and its parallelism with that of the geometrician.

Nature, says Ficino, which is divine art, differs from human art in

that it produces its creations from within, by living reasons: and "it

does not touch the surface of matter by means of a hand or any other

external instrument, as the soul of a geometer touches the dust when

he describes figures upon the earth, but _perinde ut geometrica mens

materiam intrinsecus phantasticam fabricat,_ it operates like the mind

of a geometer creating an imaginary matter from within itself. For

as the geometer's mind, while it considers within itself the nature

of figures, forms internally by pictures the image of figures, and

by means of this image forms an imaginary spirit without any toil or

design, so in the divine art of nature a wisdom of some kind by means

of intellectual processes endows with natural seeds the life-giving

and motive force itself which is its companion."[27] Vico must have

recalled this passage in Ficino when in his inaugural lecture of 1699

he compared God, "the artist of nature," to the human mind which

"we may without impiety call the God of art," just as he must have

remembered it in the _De antiquissima_ where he compares God to the

geometrician.[28] Vico might however have found thoughts of this

kind in various Renaissance philosophers, not only in Ficino: among

others, in Girolamo Cardano, who contrasts divine and human knowledge,

though with a different conclusion; and restricts the one to finite

objects ("for understanding is brought about by a kind of proportion,

_proportione quaderni fit,_ and there is no proportion between the

infinite and the finite"), denying that man can know God, for as Vico

said later in almost the same words, "if I knew God, I should be God,"

_si scirem Deus essem._ Thus he postulated "other sciences, and other

modes of understanding, entirely different from this of ours; more

true, more solid, more firm, as a body is than its shadow: and again

other principles which we can by no reason apprehend." And not only did

he postulate them, but among the human sciences he observed one which

as opposed to the natural sciences reached not merely the surfaces of

things but almost the things themselves, namely mathematics. "The human

soul, situated in the body, cannot attain to the substances of things,

but wanders about upon their surfaces by the help of the senses,

examining measurements, actions, resemblances and doctrines. But the

knowledge of the mind, which creates the fact, is in a sense itself the

fact, just as even among human sciences the knowledge of a triangle,

that it has three angles equal to two right angles, is practically

identical with the truth itself (_scientia vero mentis, quae res

facit, est quasi ipsa res, veluti etiam in humanis scientia trigoni,

quod habeat tres angulos duobus rectis aequales, eadem ferme est ipsi

veritati_), whence it is clear that there is in us a natural science

of a different kind from true science."[29] Here, in the definition of

divine knowledge and of the procedure of human knowledge in the case of

mathematics, as opposed to that of physical science, is implicit the

principle that true knowledge consists in the identity of thought with

its object.

The idea of the opposition of mathematics to physical science, in the

certainty of the one and the uncertainty of the other, persisted in the

Neapolitan philosophers and scientists of Vico's youth, even if they

lost sight of the reason of this opposition. Tommaso Cornelio in his

"progymnasma" _De ratione philosophandi_ (1661) after reviewing the

errors produced by the illusions of sense in physical science, says,

"the contemplations of mathematics are not subjected to errors of this

kind, dealing as they do with things whose images are not introduced

into the mind by the senses; for the mind can by itself adequately

conceive figures and numbers, whose properties and analogies are

examined by mathematicians, without aid from sense."[30] This ought to

be emphasised, since it seems highly probable that Vico was stimulated

to the establishment of his general theory of knowledge by reflection

upon mathematics and the contrast between it and physical science.

In fact the Latin speeches, our earliest documents for his studies,

though they show the influence of Ficino and a certain amount of

Cartesianism,[31] are never dominated by this general criterion. It is

only in the last of these speeches, that of 1707, that the distinction

between mathematics and natural science begins to appear; in the next

year it is clearly stated in the _De ratione studiorum,_ where it takes

the form of a general criterion. "We demonstrate geometry because we

make it: if we could demonstrate physical facts, we should be creating

them. For the true forms of things exist only in God the greatest

and best, and to these the nature of them conforms" (_geometrica

demonstramus quia facimus: si physica demonstrare possemus, faceremus.

In uno enim Deo Opt. Max. sunt verae rerum formae, quibus earundem est

conformata natura_). And this theory attained its full development in

1710 in the _De antiquissima._

Such are the probable precedents, or as the common but inaccurate

metaphor expresses it, "sources" of Vico's theory of knowledge. I do

not think that the formation of this theory can have been influenced by

the propositions of Geulinx and Malebranche which have been pointed out

to me,[32] namely that "no one can make that which he does not know,"

and that "God alone knows his works, because he foreknows his action."

In these propositions the old Thomistic doctrine is substantially

summarised. Much more tenable would be a connexion or at least a

comparison with Spinoza; we may recall the Spinozistic identification

of the _ordo et connexio idearum_ and the _ordo et connexio rerum._

Another ingenious, but I think, inaccurate view is that "the analytic

geometry of Descartes was the introduction of the genetic principle

into the study of geometrical objects," so that the principle _verum

ipsum factum_ "before being formulated by Vico had been practised by

Descartes"; and Vico in the _De antiquissima_ "adopted the scientific

method of Descartes, which he stated as the convertibility of the true

with the created," raising it "from a certitude to a criterion."[33]

We are dealing here not with practice, but simply with the theory of

method: for this method, conceived in its universality, just so far as

it is practical has always been practised; not by Descartes alone, and

not only by analytic geometry.

We should certainly be better informed as to the precedents of Vico's

criterion if we knew more of his studies preparatory to the _De

antiquissima,_ and if in general we had more literary evidence about

his youth. Perhaps even the precedents I have indicated, which I only

called probable, are not quite free from an element of chance; they

may be connexions only imagined by myself and non-existent for Vico's

mind, while others not accidental may perhaps be still unknown, or

await discovery by a student more fortunate than myself. But it may

not be out of place to remark that the search for "precedents" does

nothing to explain the new thought that followed them; much less does

it detract from the value of that thought. Such information, though on

the one hand it enriches our knowledge of the history of philosophy, on

the other hand has absolutely no effect upon the determinate thought

under examination. It is valuable in the biography of a philosopher,

but valueless for the comprehension of the proper meaning of the new

theory, which must be sought essentially in the new problem which it

faces and attempts to solve. In the history of philosophy the same

principles hold good as in that of literature. Take for example the

episode of Argante and Tancred in canto xix. of "Jerusalem Delivered";

Argante, while taking up his position for the fight with his adversary,

turns "as if in doubt" to the "afflicted city," towards Jerusalem

attacked by the crusaders; and when Tancred brutally mocks him, asking

whether he does this out of fear, he replies:--

I was but thinking how this city,

The immemorial green of Juda's realm,

Is falling, vanquished; whose unhappy fate

I have in vain endeavoured to repel.

Here the precedents are easily found; Hector parting from Andromache

and foreseeing the unhappy fate of Ilion, Priam and all his people

(ἒσσεται ἧμαρ, etc., _II._ vi. 448-9); or Aeneas as he gazes upon its

downfall (_ruit alto a culmine Troia: ... si Pergama dextra,_ etc.,

_Aen._ ii. 290-92). And yet the tragic melancholy of Argante is an

entirely new creation, and altogether original to Tasso.

Ficino, Cardano, Tommaso Cornelio, Scotus and Occam, and any others who

have been or shall be added to the list, have or may have anticipated

this or that element of Vico's formula: and yet when we turn from their

statements to the _De antiquissima_ and the polemics that follow it,

and read the definition of science, of true science, as the conversion

of the true with the created, it strikes us as an entirely original

theory. The fact is that Vico had not to face the same opponents and to

solve the same problems that were faced and solved by the schoolmen,

nominalists and mystics of the Middle Ages or by the Platonists and

naturalists of the Renaissance, nor yet those of Descartes in his

_Discours sur la méthode;_ and the saying that "he alone knows things

who creates them" acquires a new value, a new meaning (and this is its

proper meaning) from its being used to refute the Cartesian _cogito_

and the doctrine of immediate knowledge. Vico takes an old rusty

sword and makes of it at least a glittering and trenchant weapon. For

the same reason the phrase is no longer a mere accident or incident,

but the starting-point of a special study, the foundation of a new

philosophy, and Vico could quite well describe it as something not

learnt from another but thought out and established by himself. And

when he wants to find some original for it, he invents a history which

is really a fiction or a myth; namely the history of ancient Italian

wisdom which used this criterion as its supreme guide and left a trace

of it in the Latin language in the synonymity of the words _verum_ and

_factum._

The refutation of the Cartesian criterion (which De Sanctis thought

"complete," the "last word of criticism"[34]) is the negative aspect

of Vico's theory of knowledge. Its positive side, absent in the _De

antiquissima,_ is developed as we have said in the _Scienza Nuova,_

where the human knowledge of the mind and of history is raised to

the level of divine knowledge. And since some critics have not only

chosen to ignore the obvious difference between these two phases of

Vico's thought but have spoken of a too easy transition from the

one to the other, it will be well to observe that this transition

was for Vico if not entirely conscious at least very slow and very

difficult. He must at one time have shared Descartes' and Malebranche's

contempt for history; in the speech of 1701 he even echoed a saying

of Descartes against philologists:--"You, Philologist, boast of

knowing everything about the furniture and clothing of the Romans

and of being more intimate with the quarters, tribes and streets of

Rome than with those of your own city. Why this pride? You know no

more than did the potter, the cook, the cobbler, the summoner, the

auctioneer of Rome."[35] But eleven years later, in the second reply

to the _Giornale dei letterati,_ Vico refers to the same phrase with

the contrary conclusion, and deplores that "the study of languages is

to-day considered profitless, thanks to the authority of Descartes,

who says that to know Latin is to know no more than did Cicero's

servant-girl."[36] Vico had in the meantime become conscious of the

importance of the "probable" knowledge of history and politics. He

refers to his former anti-historical Cartesianism in a passage of

the _De constantia philologiae_ which has generally escaped notice.

Speaking of philology he says: "I, who have all my life delighted

in the use of reason more than in memory, seem to myself the more

ignorant the more facts I know in philology. Whence René Descartes and

Malebranche were not far wrong when they said that it was alien to the

philosopher to work much and for long at philology." But he adds that

later he perceived that "these two most notable philosophers ought,

it they had been zealous for the common glory of Christendom, not for

the private glory of philosophers, so to have pressed forward the

study of philology as to see whether philology could be attached to

the principles of philosophy (_ut viderent philosophi an philologiam

ad philosophiae principia revocare possent_)."[37] The elevation of

philology to the rank of philosophy, of the knowledge of the world of

man to the level of divine knowledge, is the positive aspect of Vico's

theory of knowledge. It is this that is developed in the _Scienza

Nuova,_ towards which the _De antiquissima,_ with the indication of the

historical sciences as against Cartesianism, only prepared the way.

Thus of the three points in which I placed the originality and value

of Vico's first theory of knowledge, two, namely the criterion of

knowledge opposed to that of Descartes and the defence of concrete as

opposed to abstract sciences, are not only left intact by the inquiries

into their sources which I have just described, but are actually

reinforced.

There remains the third of my points: the Vician theory of the

arbitrary nature of mathematics, the originality of which has also been

impugned by arguments which seem to me to have even less foundation

than those I have examined above.

Do we find the doctrine that the fundamental objects of mathematics,

the unit of arithmetic and the point of geometry, are unreal or

fictitious, propounded before Vico's time? Do we find it--this is the

chief point--propounded not as a casual remark or an intuition of a

truth, but as a consciously reasoned concept from which legitimate

consequences are drawn as to the limitations of mathematics and its

inability to furnish real knowledge of mind, nature and history?

All through the Middle Ages the Aristotelian theory of mathematics is

continually enunciated. According to this theory mathematics is the

most certain of the sciences because the simplest; it abstracts from

all sensible matter, but not from intelligible matter (ὖλη νοητή) which

exists in sensible objects but not qua sensible (ἐν τοῑς ἀἰσθητοῑς

ὑπάρχουσα μὴ ᾖ ἀἰσθητά)[38] According to Cassiodorus it constituted the

body of _doctrinalis_ as opposed to _naturalis_ (physical) science and

_divina._ Albertus Magnus followed Aristotle in defining mathematical

entities as separable "in imagination," "in thought" but not "in

reality" (_in phantasmate, secundum rationem, non secundum esse_)

from the sensible matter to which "they are conjoined by existence"

(_per esse sunt coniunctae_); and St. Thomas said that mathematics

"though the objects it considers are not separate, yet considers them

in so far as they are separate" (_etsi sunt non separata ea quae

considerat, tamen considerat ea in quantum sunt separata_).[39] The

arbitrary character of its foundations was never suspected. Dante, when

he wished to indicate "the things which not being subject to our power

we can only contemplate and not create," enumerated "the objects of

mathematics, physical science and divinity" (_mathematica, physica et

divina_).[40]

Just as mathematics was not always equally valued in antiquity, so,

and much more so, after the Renaissance of learning, it was variously

exalted or despised. Giordano Bruno satirised the abuse of it, and

said that without physical science "to be able to calculate and

measure, to understand geometry and perspective, is but a pastime of

ingenious fools," and warned his readers against confusing mathematical

"signs" and real "causes": "a reflected or direct ray, an acute or

obtuse angle, a perpendicular, incident or straight line, a greater

or smaller are of a circle, such and such an aspect, are mathematical

circumstances and not natural causes. To play with geometry is one

thing, to prove by means of nature is another. It is not lines

and angles that make the fire more or less hot, but near and far

situations, short and long spaces of time."[41] Campanella flatly

denied Aristotle's assertion of the superiority of mathematics to

physical science, declaring that its alleged purity was really weakness

(_debilitas_), its simplicity was inability to include more things

(_plura accipere_), its universality a contradiction against the nature

of true science which is always of particulars (_de singularibus_),

its demonstrative method by signs not by causes (_per signa, non per

causas_); and finally that it is not a science investigated for its

own sake and is valueless unless it is applied to physical matters

(_nisi applicentur physicis rebus_).[42] Bacon is of the same opinion,

that mathematics taken by itself is useless, and is useful only as an

"auxiliary science," a "great appendix" to the physical sciences.[43]

These definitions and restrictions, and others like them, might have

yielded as a conclusion the entirely instrumental and practical

character of mathematical science: but the conclusion was not drawn, so

far as I know; and Bacon himself considered mathematics as in itself

too exclusively and uselessly theoretical. "For since," he goes on in

the passage above quoted, "it is a fact of human nature, no doubt to

the great detriment of science, that it rejoices in the open plains

of generalities, so to speak, rather than in the forests and closes

of the particular, no discovery is more pleasant and gratifying than

mathematics wherewith to sate this love of wandering and of meditation."

The "creation" of mathematics spoken of by Ficino, Cardano and

others signified a mental production entirely free from material

presuppositions, and for that reason not less true but true in a

higher sense. It is almost the same sense as that found in Descartes

and his followers. Locke asserts the reality of mathematical truths,

though he admits that there are in nature no figures corresponding

to the archetypes existing in the mind of the geometrician;[44] and

Leibniz, commenting on this passage, says that "the ideas of justice

and temperance are no more our own invention than those of the circle

and the square."[45] Tommaso Cornelio, whom we have quoted on the

contrast between physical science and mathematics, also believed that

mathematics rested on "certain notions and understandings which nature

has put into the minds of men as foundations of science."[46]

Another kind of "creation," and one which seems to have more connexion

with Vico's _"fingere"_ is discussed in a passage of Aristotle's

_Metaphysics_ which has had a good deal of influence. "We find also,"

Aristotle says, "geometrical figures by actualising them (ἐνεργεία),

because they are found by being divided: if they _were_ divided, they

would be obvious, but in reality they exist potentially. Why has the

triangle two right angles? Because the angles round one point are equal

to two right angles. If then we construct the angle along one side, it

would become plain to any one looking at it. Why is the angle in the

semicircle equal to a right angle? Because if there are three equal

lines, two in the base and one drawn perpendicular to it, it is plain

to any one who sees it and knows that. Whence it is evident that we

discover things that exist potentially by reducing them to actuality.

This is because the actuality is understanding, and the potentiality

proceeds from the actuality; so we know by making (καὶ διὰ τοῡτο

ποιοῡντες γιγνώσκουσιν)."[47] But these observations belong to the

explanations given by Aristotle in this passage of the conceptions of

potentiality and actuality; they are not at all opposed to his theory

of mathematics as studying the intelligible matter which subsists

in sensible matter, and they only explain the difference between

potential and actual truth. In the same way we sometimes find in later

philosophers the assertion that mathematical truths are demonstrated

and problems resolved "by making them." Thus Sarpi writes in the

passage mentioned above: "in mathematics, he who constructs knows

because he makes, and he who analyses learns because he seeks how the

thing is made. The mode of composition then belongs to the inventive

faculty and that of analysis to the discursive: the former is that

of problems, the latter of theorems; the latter are demonstrated by

analysis, the former by composition."[48]

It has also been recently asserted that the Vician philosophy of

mathematics reappears bodily in Galileo and his school;[49] an

astounding fact when baldly stated, since even though Vico opposes

and prefers the great Pisan to Descartes for the moderate use he makes

of mathematics in physical science, it is certain that for Galileo as

for Leonardo da Vinci mathematics had an objective validity, and the

book of nature is written in mathematical characters and geometrical

figures. In any case, the passage of Galileo which has been quoted

in this reference, on the intensive identity of human with divine

knowledge, has nothing to do with the present question, and another

passage which asserts that the explanations of terms are free, and it

is in the power of every workman to circumscribe and define in his own

way the things he is dealing with, without ever being led by this into

error or falsehood, and that for instance one may call the bow the

stern and the stern the bow, says nothing but a platitude hardly worth

saying except by way of adorning a page of controversial rhetoric.[50]

In controversy one is often obliged to insist upon platitudes, and

the controversy upon which I am now engaged itself presents too many

examples.

A passage from the _Lezioni accademiche_ of Galileo's pupil Evangelista

Torricelli in which he speaks of the difference between physical and

mathematical definitions seems at first sight more convincing. But the

critic who has called attention to this passage[51] says too much when

he asserts that "it is beyond doubt that Vico had read it," since it is

unquestionable that Vico had _not_ read it. The _Lezioni accademiche_

were published first posthumously in 1715[52] and Vico's theory of

mathematics is expounded in the _De ratione_ in 1708 and the _De

antiquissima,_ 1710. This, it is true, is of secondary importance, for

Vico may have known Torricelli's doctrine through indirect channels,

through other books or even orally through some Neapolitan friend or

pupil of Torricelli; in any case, if the latter's theory though unknown

to Vico was really identical with his own, the similarity of ideas

between the two would be of the greatest interest. Unfortunately the

critic has been too hasty, as it seems to me, even in his study and

interpretation of the pages of Torricelli.

In the passage in question, a lecture _Della leggerezza,_ read to

the Accademia della Crusca, Torricelli controverts, as based on mere

appearances and not confirmed by facts and reasoning, Aristotle's

definition in the _De coelo_: "heavy is that which has a natural

property of going towards the centre." He remarks upon this: "The

definitions of Physics differ from those of Mathematics in that the

former are obliged to adapt and adjust themselves to the object

defined, while the latter mathematical definitions are free and can be

formed at the will of the geometrician who is defining. The reason is

perfectly plain: the things defined in Physics do not come into being

with the definition, they exist already by themselves and are found

in nature previously. But the things defined by geometry, that is by

the science of abstraction, have no existence in the universe of the

world other than that which definition gives to them in the universe

of intelligence. Thus whatever objects of Mathematics are defined,

the same objects will come into existence simultaneously with the

definition."[53]

The arbitrary character of mathematics seems here to be clearly stated.

But let us reserve our judgment and read on. "If I were to say, the

circle is a plane figure with four equal sides and four right angles,

this is not at all a false definition; but for the rest of my book I

should have to mean, whenever I spoke of a circle, a certain figure

which others have called a square. But if a man should say in Physics,

'the horse is a rational animal,' should we not be justified in calling

him the horse? We must first look very carefully to see whether the

horse is a rational animal or not and then define it as it is, in

order that the physical definition may conform to the object and not

be counted defective." Here we see that what appeared to be a profound

thought has turned out to be a platitude; it is indifferent whether we

call the bow the stern or the stern the bow, said Galileo, or, says

Torricelli in his turn, whether we call a square a circle or a circle a

square; while it does not seem to him an indifferent matter whether we

call a horse a rational animal. But even this does not prevent him from

admitting later some degree of arbitrariness in physical terminology,

when he says, "since then it is not demonstrated that the intrinsic

principle of downward motion exists upon the earth, I will accept this

definition, if the tests will allow me, as the simple imposition of a

name, and, replacing the verb 'to be' by the verb 'to be called,' I

will adapt the definition to my own requirements thus: That is called

heavy which descends to the centre. Whenever any one says, the earth is

heavy, I will agree, but always with the interpretation that the word

'heavy' only signifies descending in a lighter medium."[54]

It seems to me then that the difference which he begins by laying down

between mathematics and physical science is considerably obscured in

the sequel. And indeed how could Torricelli have seriously thought that

the foundation of mathematics was a "fiction," when among his lectures

one heard the title "in Praise of Mathematics"? In this lecture he

says, quite in the Galilean style: "That to read the great Book of the

Universe, the book on whose pages may be found the true philosophy

written by God, mathematics are indispensable, will be seen by any

one who with noble thoughts aspires to the science of the integral

parts and greatest members of this huge body we call the World. The

one alphabet, the only characters with which we can read the great

manuscript of the divine philosophy in the book of the Universe are

those poor figures you see in the text-books of geometry."[55] The most

we can see in these statements is a vague and hazy presentment of the

profound difference between physical truths and the so-called truths of

mathematics.

In conclusion, until for the third of my three points we can discover

much more obvious "sources" than those suggested up till now, I shall

see no cause to modify my verdict upon the originality of Vico's

conception of mathematics. This originality is further proved by the

important consequences drawn by Vico from his theory of mathematics for

his philosophical method; for every one knows that a thought taken over

bodily from another remains inert and sterile, while an original idea

is always active and fruitful.

_Note._--I have selected, of the various criticisms directed against

my book on Vico, that concerning his "originality," because this gave

me opportunities for researches and explanations of some value. But my

book has been subjected to two general criticisms which do not lend

themselves to the same treatment.

It has been said that in my exposition of Vico's philosophy I have

followed my personal philosophical convictions: and sermons and

epistles have been showered upon me preaching the duty of casting

off prejudices, etc., and narrating the history of philosophy in an

objective manner, etc. But I should like my critics to believe that my

"convictions" cannot have, to my mind, the character of prejudices,

but precisely that of liberation from prejudice, which is what they

demand: that detachment and purity of understanding which is necessary

for the comprehension of historical facts, and is not, as some fancy,

a primeval innocence, but the fruit of laborious cultivation. To

grasp Vico historically in his strict reality I have been compelled

to undergo a _catharsis_ of prejudices, consisting in my case of

the philosophy to which my own efforts had led me. My ideas may be

untrue, but that is another question; and that means that if their

falsity is proved I am bound to clear and purify my mind by means

of less false ideas; but these in their turn must always be ideas

and become convictions. In point of abstract method, no objection at

all can be made to any one who looks at Vico through the spectacles

of scholasticism if he thinks they make his sight more distinct and

penetrating; the most we can do is to try and persuade him that

there are better spectacles on the market. But we certainly have

the right to smile if this same scholastic goes on to warn us that

"in studying a philosopher, in investigating and reconstructing his

thought, it is absolutely necessary to bring to the task a mind free

from preconceptions and hostile to prejudices"; while all the time he

is trying to pass off his scholastic opinions and religious beliefs

under the banner of objectivity, sincerity and freedom from prejudice.

"Philosophers"--I have seen this assertion too--"are unfitted for

writing the history of philosophy, because they have ideas of their

own." And who is fitted for it? People who are not philosophers? Does

not Vico teach us precisely this, that where he who makes the facts (as

the philosopher makes philosophy) himself narrates them, there history

reaches its highest certainty?

The other criticism concerns the idealistic interpretation which I

have given to some of Vico's doctrines. It is contended that Vico

was a Catholic, and that fact is supposed to prove that he could not

have entertained the ideas which I find in his works. But that Vico

professed himself an entirely orthodox Catholic, and that he clung to

Catholicism with all the strength and zeal of his mind I have myself

said again and again: I have even defended him against the accusations

or praises dealt out to him by other critics for deceit or prudence in

his attitude to the Church. But is it really so amazing, so unheard-of

a thing, to find heterodox ideas in an orthodox writer? Are they not

found in the Early Fathers and the Schoolmen, in mediaeval and modern

theologians and mystics? To take an example of the many that occur,

an example for a double reason above suspicion: Nicholas of Cusa was

a Catholic and in fact a Cardinal of Holy Church, and in his lifetime

the intimate friend of three popes. And yet the Catholic historian of

Scholasticism, De Wulf, wrote of him "Le Cardinal catholique est-il

donc panthéiste?... Il s'en défend vivement dans son _Apologia doctae

ignorantiae,_ mais on peut dire de lui comme d'Eckehart: 'il fait

fléchir la logique au profit de son orthodoxie et retient de force les

conséquences de ses prémisses'" (_Hist. de la philos. médiévale,_ p.

389). If this happened to the Cardinal of Cusa or the Franciscan Master

Eckehart, could it not happen to the Catholic Vico? M. de Wulf the

Catholic historian is allowed to use this admirable method of criticism

and to distinguish intention and action, will and logic. Why should it

be denied to me? But enough.

[Footnote 1: A lecture delivered before the _Accademia pontaniana_ on

March 10, 1912, and here reprinted from the _Atti_ of that society,

vol. xlii.]

[Footnote 2: _Von den göttlichen Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung_ (1811),

W.W. iii. 351-354.]

[Footnote 3: _Vorlesungen über religiose Philosophie,_ W.W. i. 195, and

_Vorles. über spekul. Dogmatik, ib._ ix. 106 (passages quoted by K.

Werner, G. B. Vico, p. 324).]

[Footnote 4: _La Filosofia fondamentale,_ translated from the Spanish,

Naples, 1851, bk. i. ch. 30-31.]

[Footnote 5: _Storia critica delle prove metafisiche di una realità

sovrasensibile (Atti dell' Accademia di Torino,_ i. 1866), pp. 640-41.]

[Footnote 6: _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_ (1878), 5th edition,

i. 23.]

[Footnote 7: _G. B. Vico als Philosoph und gelehrter Forscher_ (Wien,

1881). It is well known that Werner has written upon St. Thomas, Duns

Scotus, late Scholasticism, Suarez, Augustinianism, nominalism, etc.]

[Footnote 8: Th. Neal (A. Cecconi), _Vico e l'immanenza,_ in the Roman

_Cultura contemporanea,_ iii. (1911) parts 7-8, pp. 1-24.]

[Footnote 9: Cf. _Summa Theol._ i. q. v. a. I: q. xxi. a. 1-2.]

[Footnote 10: _Prima risposta al Giornale dei letterati (Opere,_ ed.

Ferrari, ii. 117).]

[Footnote 11: Balmes, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 12: _Scienza Nuova,_ ed. Nicolini, i. 187-8.]

[Footnote 13: _Ibid._ p. 188.]

[Footnote 14: _Scritti filosofici,_ ed. Gentile, pp. 383-7, and

_Esperienza e metafisica,_ p. 218 _sqq._]

[Footnote 15: See Gentile's note, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 16: _L'Autobiografia, il carteggio e le poesie varie,_ ed.

Croce, pp. 4-5. Mauthner's assertion (_Beiträge zu einer Kritik der

Sprache,_ Berlin, 1901, ii. 497-8) that Vico was a nominalist and

that the great discoveries of the _Scienza Nuova_ were due to his

nominalism, is quite arbitrary and not founded correctly on his

autobiography.]

[Footnote 17: _Autobiography,_ ed. cit. pp. 5-6. Pietro Giannone was

also studying Scotism about 1690 (_Vita scritta da lui medesimo,_ ed.

Nicolini, pp. 6-7).]

[Footnote 18: Werner, _Johannes Duns Scotus_ (Wien, 1881), p. 76.]

[Footnote 19: Werner, _Die nachscotistische Scholastik_ (Wien, 1883),

p. 82.]

[Footnote 20: _Scritti filosofici inediti,_ ed. Papini (Lanciano,

Carabba, 1910).]

[Footnote 21: See Gentile's observations on Papini's edition, in the

_Critica,_ review viii. 62-5.]

[Footnote 22: Papini's edition has "po'" (little): but his source, the

Marcian MS., has an abbreviation to be read as "però" (therefore).]

[Footnote 23: Appendix to his _Opera medica_ (Tolosae Tectasogum,

1636), p. 10.]

[Footnote 24: _Ottonis Episcopi Frisigensis Opera,_ ex recens. R.

Wilmans, i. _Chronicon_ (Hannoveriae, 1867), pp. 118-19.]

[Footnote 25: _Autob._ ed. cit. p. 21.]

[Footnote 26: _Ibid._ p. 25.]

[Footnote 27: _Theologia Platonica_ (Bale, 1561), i. 123. This passage

of Ficino has been quoted and commented on by my friend Gentile, in a

highly important monograph on _La prima fase della filosofia di G. B.

Vico_ (viz. the "inaugural lectures"), published in the miscellany in

honour of Francesco Torraca (1912, see _infra,_ p. 310) and read in MS.

by myself, thanks to the courtesy of the author.]

[Footnote 28: See Gentile's monograph, mentioned above.]

[Footnote 29: These passages of the _Tractatus de arcanis

aeternitatis,_ ch. iv., and of the _De subtilitate,_ bks. xi. and

xxi. are quoted and commented on by Fiorentino, _Bernardino Telesio

ossia studi storici su l' idea della natura nel risorgimento italiano_

(Florence, Le Monnier, 1872), i. 212-13, who does not fail to observe

the relations with Vico's criterion.]

[Footnote 30: Thomae Cornelii consentini _Progymnasmata physica_

(Naples, MDCLXXXVIII.), p. 70: cf. also p. 64.]

[Footnote 31: See Gentile's monograph, mentioned above.]

[Footnote 32: By A. Pastore in a review of my monograph on Vico in the

_Giorn. stor. d. left. ital._ lviii., cf. pp. 400-402.]

[Footnote 33: A. A. Zottoli, _G. B. Vico,_ in _Cultura,_ Rome, xxx.

(1911) pp. 422-3.]

[Footnote 34: _Opp._ ed. Ferrari, ii. 166.]

[Footnote 35: _Orazioni latine,_ ed. Galasso, p. 28.]

[Footnote 36: _Opp._ ed. Ferrari, ii. 166.]

[Footnote 37: _Ibid._ 232.]

[Footnote 38: _Metaphys._ vi. 1036 a.]

[Footnote 39: The passages of Cassiodorus, Albertus and St. Thomas may

be found collected in Mariétan, _Problème de la classification des

sciences d'Aristote à saint Thomas_ (Paris, 1901), see pp. 80, 168-9,

182-3, 185-6.]

[Footnote 40: _De monarchia,_ i. c. 3.]

[Footnote 41: _La Cena delle ceneri_ (1584) in his _Opere italiane,_

ed. Gentile, i. 62, 107-8.]

[Footnote 42: _Logicorum libri très,_ bk. ii. art. 7-10 (in the

_Philosophiae rationalis pars secunda,_ Parisiis, 1637, pp. 433-7).]

[Footnote 43: _De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum,_ bk. iii. c. 6.]

[Footnote 44: _Essay,_ iv. ch. 4, § 6.]

[Footnote 45: _Nouveaux essais,_ iv. ch. 4.]

[Footnote 46: _Op. cit._ p. 64.]

[Footnote 47: _Metaphys._ viii. 1051 b. I append the passage:

εὑρἰσκεται δὲ καὶ τὰ διαγράμματα ἐνεργεἰᾳ · διαιροῡντες γὰρ

εὑρἰσκουσις. εὶ δ' ἧν διῃρημένα φανερὰ ἂν ἧν · νῦν δ' ἐνυπάρχει

δυνάμει. διὰ τί δύο ὀρθαὶ τò τρίγωνον ὃτι αἱ περἱ μἱαν στιγμὴν γωνίαι

ἲσαι δύο ὀρθαῑς. εὶ oὖν ἀνῆκτο ἡ παρὰ τἡν πλευρὰν ἰδόντι ἂν ἧν εὐθὺς

δῆλον. διὰ τί ἐν ἡμικυκλίῳ ὀρΘὴ καΘόλου; διὀτι ἐὰν τρεῑς, ἤ τε βάσις

δύο καὶ ἡ ἐκ μέσου ἐπισταΘεῑα ὀρΘὴ, ἰδόντι δῆλον τῷ ἐκεῑνο εἰδὀτι. ὤστε

φανερòv ὄτι τὰ δυνάμει ὄντα εἰς ἐνέργεἰαν ἀναγόμενα εὑρἰσκεται. αἴτιον

δ' ὄτι νὀησις ἡ ἐνεργεἰᾳ · ὤστ ἐξ ἐνεργεἰας ἡ δυνάμις. καὶ διὰ τοῡτο

ποιοῡντες γιγνώσκουσιν.]

[Footnote 48: _Scritti filosofici,_ ed. Papini, p. 7. In a passage of

the _Arte di ben pensare (Scritti,_ p. 72) Sarpi returns to mathematics

and, while agreeing that it is less uncertain than the other sciences

because in it "the mode and the proposition" are more clearly shown,

goes on to say "it is also made in the same manner (as the others): it

is not free from the suspicion of being not quite true." But clearly

he is here speaking of the application of mathematics, of the act of

counting and measuring physical objects: "this alone is certain: I

count and reason in this manner, just as in eating honey I feel the

effect which I call sweet; where I may be in error is the question

whether this effect comes from the object or from the disposition of my

taste: and there is no science where there are number and measurement,

for all we can know is that we measure or count like this, and that

the measure comes in or is used as many times as the thing seems to be

equal to one such part and that equality is a concept of ours by which

we express what then seems to happen."]

[Footnote 49: G. Papini, _La Novità di Vico_ in _L'Anima,_ Florence,

September 1911, pp. 264-6; cf. on this article, _Critica,_ x. 56-8.]

[Footnote 50: Papini probably owes this passage to a small anthology of

Galileo by Favaro (Florence, Barbèra, 1910), p, 303, which refers to

the national edition of his _Opere,_ iv. 631; here the passage occurs

in the _Considerazioni sopra il discorso di Colombo_ (1615).]

[Footnote 51: G. Papini, _loc. cit._ pp. 265-6.]

[Footnote 52: _Lezioni accademiche di Evangelista Torricelli,

mathematico e filosofo del serenissimo Ferdinando II Granduca di

Toscana, lettore delle matematiche nello studio di Firenze e accademico

della Crusca_ (Florence, MDCCXV.). The editor's preface shows that the

work had not been previously published.]

[Footnote 53: _Op. cit._ pp. 31-2.]

[Footnote 54: _Op. cit._ p. 33.]

[Footnote 55: _Op. cit._ p. 66.]

APPENDIX IV

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

I. WORKS OF VICO

Vico's earliest extant work is the poem entitled _Feelings of one in

despair,_ composed certainly before the author's twenty-fifth year at

Vatolla in the Cilento, where he lived for nine years as a tutor at

the Casa Rocca, printed by Gonzatti at Venice and dated 1693. This was

followed by verses and speeches of a merely rhetorical character.

The philosophical characteristics are accentuated in the six speeches

read by Vico at Naples University, 1699-1707, not printed by him, and

rediscovered and published by Galasso (Naples, Morano, 1869). In these

speeches, though some tendencies of his thought show themselves, his

philosophy is still the traditional system, not without some traces of

Cartesianism. Vico's opposition to Cartesianism and formal adoption of

his own views are announced for the first time in the inaugural lecture

for the year 1708, entitled _De nostri temporis studiorum ratione,_

published next year by the author himself (Naples, Mosca, 1709). A

long digression (§§ 12-15) contains a sketch of the history of Roman

jurisprudence, his first essay in the historical studies which led

later on to the _Diritto universale_ and the two _Scienze Nuove._

The following year appeared Vico's first constructively philosophical

and historical work: the _De antiquissima Italorum sapientia ex

linguae Latinae originibus eruenda,_ or rather the first book of that

work (Naples, Mosca, 1710): the other two were never written, but

we can form an idea of their intended contents from what is said in

the Autobiography. Beside Vico's theory of knowledge in its first

form and the metaphysic which he always maintained in its entirety,

the _De antiquissima_ contained an attempt to reconstitute for the

first time primitive wisdom, or rather one particular instance of

primitive wisdom, that of Italy; but as we have already said in the

text of our exposition the attempt was founded on the idea that this

wisdom was philosophical, and conducted according to the criterion

of the transmission of culture which Vico subsequently rejected, as

he rejected the traditional opinion, accepted in this work, of the

Athenian origin of the laws of the Twelve Tables. We must accordingly

refuse to accept Cantoni's verdict (_G. B. Vico,_ p. 38) that the

_De antiquissima_ forms "a strange anomaly in the history of Vico's

thought, being contrary to his whole scientific life, his tendencies,

his principles, and the method which later he almost universally

applies in his historical researches." The reverse is in fact the case:

namely that this work is the starting-point of his future developments

and that without it we cannot understand his later thought.

The criticisms directed by the _Giornale dei letterati d' Italia_

(1711, vols. v. and viii.) against the historical and some of the

philosophical positions of the _De antiquissima_ evoked Vico's two

important _Replies_ (Naples, Mosca, 1711 and 1712) in which he defends

and elucidates his views on the theory of knowledge and metaphysics.

The part of the _De antiquissima_ that never went to the press included

his meditations on the philosophy of medicine, from which he extracted

an essay _De aequilibrio corporis animantis:_ this he thought of

publishing many years later, but it is now lost. Of these studies,

therefore, as of his speculations upon physics intended to constitute a

_Liber physicus,_ we know only what he tells us in his autobiography.

Setting aside his rhetorical and occasional compositions, the largest

of which is the _De rebus gestis Antonii Caraphaei_ (Naples, Mosca,

1716), the continuation of his thought, now concentrating upon moral

and historical problems, is sketched in a lecture of 1719 (of which

an abstract is included in the autobiography) and developed first in

1720 in a printed prospectus of four double-columned pages known as the

_Sinopsi del diritto universale,_ and secondly in the vast treatise,

_De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno liber unus_ (Naples,

Mosca, 1720) completed next year with the _Liber alter qui est de

constantia iurisprudentis,_ and supplemented in 1722 by the _Notae in

duos libros,_ etc. (same publisher); a work which is usually referred

to briefly following the author's example as the _Diritto universale._

This book, according to Cantoni (_op. cit._ p. 243) represents the

culminating point of Vico's scientific activity. The verdict is no

more acceptable than that quoted above. The author (_Opp._ v. 10-11)

rejected the _Diritto universale_ because he seemed to find persisting

there the prejudice and the pretence of "descending" from the thought

of Plato and other philosophers to that of primitive man, a tendency

which led him astray "in certain matters"; but he also calls it, and

rightly, a "sketch for the _Scienza Nuova,_" which it really is.

The ideas about poetry are here still confused, Homer is not yet a

myth, the mythological canons have less unity than they acquired

later, the theory of reflux is only faintly adumbrated, and in a

word both the ideal eternal history and the theory of knowledge upon

which it is founded are as yet immature. The book is all contained,

under a new form, in his later work, except the general ethical and

juridical philosophy, which is not highly original, and some historical

developments which are merely alluded to in the later writings.

The MS. of an Italian work in two books, in which Vico expounded his

doctrines "by a negative method," has been lost. But he expounds them

positively and at less length in the _Principi di una Scienza Nuova

intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, per la quale si ritrovano i

principi di altro sistema del diritto naturale delle genti_ (Naples,

Mosca, 1725) which is known by the title (again authorised by himself)

of First _Scienza Nuova._

In 1725, the year of the publication of the first _Scienza Nuova,_ Vico

related the history of his studies: _Vita di G. B. Vico scritta da

se medesimo,_ which was inserted in Calogerà's _Raccolta di opuscoli

scientifici e filologici_ (Venice, Zani, 1728, vol. i. pp. 145-256).

Among the minor writings of this period may be noted the two speeches

on the death of the Countess of Althann (1724) and the Marchesana della

Petrella Angiola Cimini (1727); the little volume _Vici vindiciae_

(Naples, Mosca, 1729) containing a personal defence (together with an

important theoretical digression on "laughter") against a malevolent

notice inserted in the _Acta Lipsiensia_ of 1727, about the _Scienza

Nuova;_ and some fine letters to Giacchi, Degli Angioli, Esperti, De

Vitry and Solla on the contrast between his works and the state of

learning at this time.

To the first _Scienza Nuova_ Vico thought of adding a long series of

_Annotations_ in a reprint of it which he was preparing at Venice

between 1728 and 1730. But since this scheme was not carried out,

and on the other hand he was dissatisfied with the book not so much

on account of the matter, he says, as on account of the arrangement

(_Opp._ vi. 11), he resolved to publish an entirely new exposition

of his doctrines in the _Cinque libri de' principi di una Scienza

Nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, in questa seconda

impressione con più propia maniera condotti e di molto accresciuti_

(Naples, Mosca, 1730), which form the second _Scienza Nuova._ While

Cantoni (_op. cit._ pp. 238-9) considers this work the dotage of

Vico's thought, it is really the necessary result and perfect form in

which his previous attempts issued; it is the book which with the _De

antiquissima_ and the autobiography supplies all the necessary material

for a knowledge of his thought. In the _Diritto universale_ and the

first _Scienza Nuova_ we can find a few details omitted in the later

work; but those treatises display the same doctrines as the second

_Scienza Nuova_ in a manner much less profound and solid, and certainly

less characteristic of the author. The detailed comparison of these

three works has been made with great care in the short summaries added

by Ferrari to his editions of the first and second _Scienza Nuova._

Even the 1730 edition was increased by the author from 1731 to about

1740 by many variations and additions, though without changing the

arrangement or the substance of the work. These additions were taken

for the most part incorporated in a final MS. on which was based the

edition of the _Principi di una Scienza Nuova intorno alla comune

natura delle nazioni,_ published the very year of Vico's death (Naples,

Stamperia Muziana, 1744). In the National Library at Naples are

preserved the autographs both of this MS. and of two earlier MSS. of

additions and corrections, unpublished fragments of which have been

published by Giordano (Naples, 1818) and Del Giudice (Naples, 1862).

All the unpublished fragments and variants have been now collected by

Nicolini in the edition hereafter mentioned (p. 307).

After the second _Scienza Nuova_ Vico wrote hardly anything. We may

note among these few productions the speech _De mente heroica_ (Naples,

1732), the addition to the autobiography (1731), and a few sonnets

in which, composed though they were, like almost all his verses, by

request and as occasional pieces, a personal note may at times be felt.

II. REPRINTS, COLLECTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS

Two collections of Vico's minor works have been made, one of the

_Latinae orationes_ alone by F. Daniele (Naples, 1766), and the other,

rich in unpublished matter, of the Italian and Latin _Opuscoli,_

in four volumes, by C. A. de Rosa, Marchese di Villarosa (Naples,

1818-23). Vico's son Gennaro furnished Villarosa with all his father's

extant papers; and these priceless autographs are still preserved at

Naples in the house of my intimate friends the engineers Tommaso and

Vincenzo de Rosa di Villarosa.

The first and only edition as it may be called, since all others

are merely reproductions of it, of Vico's complete works is that of

Giuseppe Ferrari, in six volumes (Milan, _Classici italiani,_ 1835-37)

reprinted with improvements in 1852-54. The _Opere_ edited by N. M.

Corcia (Naples, Tipografia della Sibilla, 1834, 2 vols.) are only a

selection; and the _Opere_ edited by F. Predari (Milan, Bravetta, 1835)

never went beyond one ill-arranged volume. The edition which followed

that of Ferrari (Naples, Iovane, 1840-41) is also incomplete and

ill-arranged, but contains some small unpublished works. The Neapolitan

edition of the _Opere_ in eight volumes (i.-ii. 1858, iii. 1861, iv.

1859, v.-vi. 1860, vii. 1865, viii. 1869, the earlier volumes at the

Tipografia dei Classici Italiani, the others by the publisher Morano)

is based mainly upon Ferrari, but somewhat incorrect; it is however the

most complete of all, as containing the _Sinopsi,_ the _Istituzioni

oratorie,_ and the _Orazioni latine_ published by Galasso subsequently

to Ferrari's edition, as well as the Italian translations by the

advocate F. S. Pomodoro of the _De ratione, De antiquissima,_ and

_Diritto universale._

Unpublished or scattered works of Vico not appearing in any of these

editions have been collected by Croce, _Bibliografia vichiana_ and

_Primo_ and _Secondo supplemento_: see below.

A critical edition of the second _Scienza Nuova_ is now being printed

in the _Collezione dei classici della filosofia modernadiretta da

B. Croce e G. Gentile_ (Bari, Laterza): the first volume is to be

published at the same time as the present monograph.[1] It is being

edited by Dr. Fausto Nicolini, who by using the autograph MSS. has

enriched Ferrari's edition, which contained the fragments suppressed in

the 1730 issue, by all the fragments of the intermediate redactions

down to the 1744 text; Vico's quotations have been checked and

references given in notes to the passages of classical and modern

authors to which he refers; and, finally, in deference to a wish

often expressed by men of letters as authoritative as Tommaseo, the

orthography and punctuation have been corrected. Ferrari's valuable

summaries are reproduced, with a few emendations, in Nicolini's edition.

Nicolini is also at work on a new edition of the complete works, to

form part of Laterza's collection of _Scrittori d' Italia,_ the scheme

and detailed index of which may be seen in Croce, _Secondo supplemento

alla Bibliografia vichiana_ (pp. 102-13). The fifth volume of this

collection, edited by Croce, is also to appear with the present

monograph.

Vico's Latin works have frequently been translated into Italian: the

_De antiquissima_ anonymously, perhaps by Vincenzo Monti (1816), and

later by Sarchi (1870): the first book of the _Diritto naturale_ by

Corcia (1839), Amante (1841), Giani (1855), and Sarchi (1866), and both

books, with the _De ratione_ and _De antiquissima,_ as we have said, by

Pomodoro.

The second _Scienza Nuova_ was translated into French, much

abbreviated, by Jules Michelet, under the title of _Principes de la

philosophie de l'histoire_ (Paris, Renouard, 1827) and frequently

reprinted; and again, in full, by an anonymous translator described as

"l'Auteur de l'Essai sur la formation du dogme catholique," in reality

Cristina Trivulzi, Princess of Belgioioso (Paris, Renouard, 1844).

Michelet also translated some of Vico's minor works, published with

the _Scienza Nuova_ in the edition of the _Oeuvres choisies de Vico_

(Paris, Hachette, 1835) and frequently reprinted.

In German there is a translation in full with good notes by W. E.

Weber (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844). There is also a summary of the first

book of the _Diritto universale_ by K. H. Müller, forming the first

volume of a series of Vico's _Kleine Schriften_ which was not continued

(Neubrandenburg, Brunslow, 1854).

The only English translation is a version of the book on Homer based

on Michelet's French translation and inserted in H. Nelson Coleridge's

_Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets_ (3rd ed.,

London, Murray, 1846).

[Footnote 1: By now (1913) the second volume has appeared: the third

will appear next year.]

III. BIOGRAPHY OF VICO

By way of supplement to the autobiography, Villarosa collected

information on Vico's last years and published it as a continuation of

that work in his edition of the _Opuscoli,_ vol. i. (1818).

This supplement, together with everything else that has been published

in the way of documents or contemporary records of Vico, may be found

collected in the fifth volume of the new edition of his works above

mentioned (p. 307) and entitled: _L'Autobiografia, il carteggio e le

poesie varie,_ ed. B. Croce (Bari, Laterza, 1911).

IV. LITERATURE ON VICO

There are only three monographs on Vico which may still be read with

profit (that of Ferrari, _La Mente del Vico,_ admirable editor though

he was, may best be consigned to merciful oblivion); they are as

follows:--

1. Carlo Cantoni, _G.B.V., studi critici e comparativi_ (Turin,

Civelli, 1867). Cf. for certain reservations A. Faggi, in _Rivista

filosofica italiana,_ vol. ix., 1906, pp. 593-606, and G. Gentile, in

_Critica,_ vol. v., 1907, pp. 197-201.

2. Karl Werner, _G.B.V. als Philosoph und gelehrter Forscher,_ (Wien,

Braumüller, 1881). Cf. _Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philos.

Kritik,_ vol. lxxii., 1883, pp. 139-52.

3. Robert Flint, _Vico_ (Edinburgh and London, 1884). (Italian

translation by F. Finocchietti, Florence, 1888).

See what has been said of these above, p. 277. Of short and general

studies the following are the best:--

1. B. Spaventa, _G.B.V.,_ in _Prolusione è introduzione alle lezioni

di filosofia_ (Naples, Vitale, 1862), pp. 83-102, reprinted under the

title _La Filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia

europea,_ ed. G. Gentile (Bari, Laterza, 1908); see pp. 111-35 of this

reprint.

2. F. de Sanctis, _Storia della letteratura italiana_ (Naples, Morano,

1870; new ed. Croce, Bari, Laterza, 1912), vol. ii. pp. 342-62.

3. F. Fiorentino, _Lettere sopra la "Scienza Nuova"_ (Florence, 1865),

reprinted in _Scritti vari_ (Naples, Morano, 1871), pp. 161-211.

4. E. Cauer, _G.B.V. und seine Stellung zur modernen Wissenschaft_

(in _Deutsches Museum,_ edited by R. Prutz and W. Woelfsohn, Leipzig,

Hinrichs, year I, 1851, vol. i. pp. 249-65).

For special points the following may be consulted:--

1. F. A. Wolf, _G.B.V. über den Homer_ (in _Museum der

Alterthumswissenschaft,_ Berlin, 1807, vol. ii. pp. 555-70).

2. J. K. von Orelli, _Vico und Niebuhr_ (in _Schweizerisches Museum,_

Aarau, vol. i. p. 184 _sqq._).

3. C. Iannelli, _Sulla natura e necessità della scienza delle cose e

delle storie umane_ (Naples, Porcelli, 1818, and Milan, Fontana, 1832).

4. Emerico Amari, _Critica di una scienza della legislazione

comparata_ (Genoa, Istituto dei Sordomuti, 1857). Cf. on this book K.

Werner, _E.A. in seinem Verhältnis zu G.B.V._ (Wien, 1880; from the

_Sitzungsberichte der phil.-histor. Klasse_ of the Imperial Academy of

Vienna, vol. xcvi.).

5. F. Acri, _Teoria del V. intorno alle idee O paradimmi_ (in _Abbozzo

di una teoria delle idee,_ Palermo, Lao, 1870; and with modifications

in the volume _Videbimus in aenigmate,_ Bologna, Mareggiane 1907, pp.

287-313).

6. E. Cenni, an exposition of Vico's metaphysic in the volume entitled

_Considerazioni sull' Italia ad occasione del traforo del Gottardo_

(Florence, Cellini, 1884), pp. 109-82.

7. E. Bouvy, _De V. Cartesii adversario_ (Paris, Hachette, 1889).

8. E. Bouvy, _La Critique dantesque au dix-huitième siècle: Dante et

V._ (Paris, Leroux, 1892).

9. G. Sorel, _Étude sur V._ (in _Devenir social,_ Paris, vol. ii.,

1896) and see esp. the same author's _Le Système historique de Renan_

(Paris, Jacques, 1905), _passim._

10. B. Labanca, _G.B.V. e i suoi critici cattolici_ (Naples, Pierro,

1898).

11. G. Rossi, _V. nei tempi di V._ (in _Rivista filosofica italiana,_

vol. ii., 1899, pp. 294-319, and part 2, _ibid._ vol. x., 1907, pp.

602-34).

12. A. Olivieri, _Gli studi omerici di G.B.V._ (in _Atti della r.

Accad. di archeologia, lettere e belle arti,_ Naples, vol. xxiv., 1905).

13. C. Trabalza, _Storia della grammatica italiana_ (Milan, Hoepli,

1908), ch. xii. pp. 364-76.

14. P. Garofalo, _Acrisia vichiana nella "Scienza Nuova,"_ critical

annotations (Naples, Detken, 1909): cf. F. Nicolini, in _Critica,_ vol.

viii., 1910, pp. 374-8.

15. G. Maugain, _Étude sur l'évolution intellectuelle de l'Italie de

1657 à 1750 environ_ (Paris, Hachette, 1909).

16. On my own previous work upon Vico, it should be observed that

the materials of the chapter on Vico's aesthetic doctrine in Croce,

_Estetica_ (4th ed., Bari, Laterza, 1912, ch. v. pp. 255-71), have been

worked up in a more mature form into ch. iv. of the present monograph:

the essay on Vico's Ethics (in _Critica,_ vi., 1908, pp. 71-7) has been

absorbed into chaps, vi.-viii.; and similarly that on the _Lineamenti

di storia letteraria in G.B.V._ (_ibid._ pp. 460-80) into chaps, xvi.

and xviii.; my other scattered writings have in general been only of

technical, philological, or polemical interest. In the miscellaneous

_Studi in onore di F. Torraca_ (Naples, Perrella, 1912) is a short

essay by me upon _La Dottrina del riso e dell' ironia in G.B.V._

The whole of the literature on Vico, together with extracts from rare

books, minor works, and articles, and with unpublished documents

together with fully detailed notes on the editions of Vico's writings,

is collected in the three works to which I have frequently referred,

namely: B. Croce, _Bibliografia vichiana contenente nella parte I

il catalogo delle edizioni, traduzioni e manoscritti delle opere di

G.B.V.; nella parte II, quello dei giudizi e lavori storico-critici

intorno al V. sino al-l' anno corrente; nella parte III lettere

inedite del V. e al V., documenti e altri scritti inediti o rari, e

varie appendici illustrative_ (Naples, 1904: reprinted from _Atti

dell' Accademia pontaniana,_ Naples, vol. xxxiv.; pp. xii. 127,

4to);--_Supplemento alla Bibliografia vichiana_ (Naples, 1907;

reprinted from _Atti,_ vol. xxxvii. pp. 34, 4to)--and _Secondo

Supplemento_ (Naples, 1911, reprinted from _Atti,_ vol. xl. pp. 116,

4to); the whole collected in one volume under the title: _Bibliografia

vichiana; raccolta di tre memorie presentate all' Accademia pontaniana

di Napoli nel 1903, 1907 e 1910,_ with an appendix by F. Nicolini

(Bari, Laterza, 1911).[1]

[Footnote 1: Since the publication of the Italian edition of this work

in 1911 several studies of Vico have appeared. The following may be

noted:--

G. Gentile, _La Prima Fase della filosofia di G.B.V.,_ Naples, 1912 (in

the _Studi in onore di F. Torraca_), quoted _supra,_ p. 287 n.

F. Pessico, _Ripensando la Scienza Nuova_ (in _Rassegna nazionale,_

November 1, 1912).

G. Folchieri, _Il Carattere dell' opera di G.B.V._ (Perugia, Bartelli,

1913). F. Nicolini, _Spigolature vichiane; sul testo delle Vindiciae_

(in _Scritti vari in onore di R. Renier,_ Turin, 1912).

B. Croce, _Il V. e la critica omerica_ (in the volume _Saggio sullo

Hegel e altri scritti di storia della filosofia,_ Bari, Laterza, 1913,

pp. 269-282).

Cf. also W. Windelband, _Die Geschichte der neueren Philosophie,_ 5th

ed. Leipzig, 1911, vol. i. pp. 597-8.]

NOTE

PASSAGES OF VICO'S WORKS TO WHICH ESPECIAL REFERENCE IS MADE IN THE

COURSE OF THE EXPOSITION

CHAPTER I.--For this chapter see the _De ratione,_ the _De

antiquissima,_ the two _Riposte al Giornale dei letterati,_ and the

first part of the Autobiography. For the note (p. 8) on the spirit of

the Reformation, see _Opere,_ ed. Ferrari, 2nd ed. vi. 5.

Chapter _II.--Opp._ v. 147, 239, 136-7, 51; iv. 33; v. 50-51, 147;

iv-33, 63-4; iii. 200; v. 17, 97, 103, 149-50, 174; iv. 20, 248; iii.

232; iv. 20; v. 562.

Chapter III.--_Opp._ v. 147, 162, 99, 42; iv. 73, 81, 174-5; v. 91, 145.

Chapter IV.--_Opp._ v. 141, 166, 42; iii. 232, 272-3; iv. 20; v. 175,

259, 107; iv. 22, 33; v. 180, 441, 209-10, 201; iv. 205, 206; iii. 274,

275; v. 230, 211, 169; iv. 201, 233, 365; v. 55, 82, 187, 196-7; iv.

224; v. 110, 112, 168, 212, 237, 217, 379, 440, 212, 238; iv. 24.

Chapter V.--_Opp._ v. 80-81; iv. 20, 21, 74; v. 169; v. 161-7; iv.

191-3, 168-9, v. 18; iv. 169, 50-51; iii. 26; ii. 96-7; v. 166, 43,

169, 420-21, 387, 192, 379, 108.

Chapter VI.--_Opp._ v. 437, 18; iv. 165; v. 109, 110, 534; vi. 15; v.

532; iii. 12; v. 106; v. 49; iv. 343; vi. 127; iii. 30; iv. 87; iii.

57; v. 490; iv. 40-41; iii. 30; iv. 334; iv. 35; iii. 12, 30; v. 97;

iii. 234-40; iv. 49; v. 98, 131; iv. 42-3.

Chapter VII.--_Opp._ v. 142, 168, 173, 248, 250; iv. 291; v. 106, 242,

142, 137-8, 290; iv. 175-7, 42-3; v. 153, 241; iv. 9; v. 96, 242, 574;

iv. 332; v. 97; iv. 176-7, 43; v. 176, 131.

Chapter _VIII.--Opp._ iv. 309-13; v. 185; iii. 55, 28, 43-4; v. 97;

iii. 47-52, 52-3; iv. 14, 45, 57; v. 148, 133; iii. 53, 85-7, 58; v.

240-41, 484; iv. 170-71, 180, 351.

Chapter _IX.--Opp._ v. 462-3, 544; iv. 43-4, 46; iii. 94, 192-3, 85,

87; iv. 18, 335, 15; v. 129-30, 563, 564; iii. 55; v. 571; iv. 245, 13,

159-60; _Scritti inediti,_ Del Giudice, pp. 11-14.

Chapter X.--_Opp._ v. 13-14, 128, 143-4, 172, 570; iii. 22; iv. 42; v.

97, 572, 45-6, 463.

Chapter _XI.--Opp._ iv. 62; v. 116, 183, 558, 559, 561, 570; vi. 127;

iii. 95; iv. 249.

Chapter XII.--Same sources as for Ch. I. and also vi. 105-6; v. 524-5.

Chapter XIII.--_Opp._ v. 60; iii. 249; v. 157, 167-70, 108; iii.

251-61; iv. 17, 253; v. 103, 217-18, 562; _Scritti inediti,_ p. 9.

Chapter XIV.--_Opp._ v. 94-6, 58, 79, 321, 63-4, 84-5, 96, 93, 100; iv.

27-8, 29-30, 97, 169, 200, 271; v. 182-3, 61-4; iii. 230; iv. 236-43,

184; iii. 450-59; v. 113, 115, 149, 211, 59, 74, 100, 183; iv. 75-6,

89; v. 206; iv. 99; iii. 273; v. 260; iii. 280; v. 430-31, 202-3, 98-9.

Chapter XV.--_Opp._ v. 356, 357, 255, 355, 121, 361-3, 363-365. 340,

341, 253, 251-3, 259, 132, 118, 278, 311, 309, 307, 118-19, 120, 121,

481, 484-6, 293-4, 246, 526, 528, 530-31, 223-5, 444, 43, 114-15,

222-3, 460, 220, 194, 191-3, 186, 249, 369, 371, 372, 375, 382, 403,

69; iv. 54, 83-4, 225-6.

Chapter XVI.--_Opp._ v. 380-81, 422-5, 452, 277, 360-61, 381, 426,

435-6, 465, 425, 427, 442, 427-32, 440-41, 445. 448-9, 451, 455, 428-9,

445, 449-56, 445-6, 448, 452, 378-81, 441-2, 453-4, 78, 446-7, 458-60,

433-4, 439; iv. 178; vi. 46; v. 100-101, 467-80, 381, 223-4, 457, 100.

102, 226, 438; iv. 163, 25, 63, 200, 128; iii. 295.

Chapter XVII.--_Opp._ iv. 249-50, 228; v. 183, 188; iii. 306-10; iv.

93, 34, 155; v. 86, 277, 322-3, 416, 129, 413-416, 81, 326, 86; iii.

473; v. 509-10, 102; iii. 469-75, 87, 122-3; iv. 67-71; v. 123-4, 191,

85, 100, 88, 290-91, 310, 496, 88-92, 123, 495-505. 502, 327. 525-30,

531, 534, 596, 474-476, 401, 551, 555, 514, 476, 515, 537-8, 122, 503,

521, 508, 523, 503, 514.

Chapter XVIII.--_Opp._ v. 550, 537, 259, 540-41. 546, 555-556; iv. 101,

545, 347-8, 552, 555, 544, 554, 537, 539, 538, 551, 328, 547, 552,

512, 553, 550, 508-9, 68, 488, 547, 538-9, 231, 233, 204, 222, 226,

361, 425, 428-39, 457; iii. 357. vi. 37, 45-6; iii. 270; vi. 35, 37-8,

42, 48; v. 429, 439; iv. 198-200; vi. 38; v. 43, 226, 555, 544, 508-9,

557-8; iv. 235-6, 71.

Chapter XIX.--For this chapter see the _De ratione,_ the first pages of

the Autobiography and the letters to Esperti, De Vitry, and Solla. On

wisdom see also _Opp._ v. 153.

INDEX OF NAMES

(Not retained for this text version.)

THE END