BENEDETTO CROCE
Benedetto Croce’s opposition to Mussolini’s government is so well
known that to include him among the precursors of Fascism may seem
strange. But here Fascism is considered as the political expression of
the intellectual or rather spiritual forces which are bringing Italy
to the fore and determining the growth of the Italian mind. Hence the
necessity of including Croce in this account of the pedigree of the
tendencies which have been realised in politics by Benito Mussolini.
This naturally does not imply that all the ideas acted upon by Fascists
are to be found in the theories of Croce, but that certain needs of
Italian minds, more or less consciously expressed during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, had been formulated and worked out by Croce,
who had either found them in de Sanctis or had developed them on lines
suggested to him by that great critic.
One of the points on which this penetrating and far seeing man had most
emphatically insisted was that the vague idealism which swept over
some European artistic centres during the last century was alien to
the Italian mind. The assertions that he met with from many quarters
as to the impossibility of the artist’s realising his ideal was
treated by him as exotic nonsense. An ineffable poem is not a poem at
all, a harmony defying expression is not a harmony at all, a vision
transcending colours and lines, shadow and light is not a vision at
all. Italians had to be reminded of the necessity of being realistic;
their greatness as well as the greatness of ancient Rome had always
rested upon a sound sense of the relation between means and end. He
described the Italian genius as a disposition rather to identify the
end and means than to fit the end to the means. He enforced this
claim, not only for artistic creation, but for historical researches
or theoretical speculation as well. He had evidently realised the
short-comings of men such as Gioberti and Rosmini. It was much
better to start on particular problems with an adequate preparation,
and develop them into speculative theories, than to start with an
indifferent preparation on vital questions and come to inadequate
conclusions.
Now if there could be in history such a thing as good luck, the
friendship of Croce and Gentile, their flourishing at the same time,
could be considered the most wonderful piece of good luck for Italy. By
luck, however, we usually mean a certain combination of circumstances
escaping our attention. Moreover, their being contemporaries of
Mussolini, the _one_ man fit to create a political world capable of
bringing into living reality their most difficult conceptions—very
often, in fact generally, without knowing anything of their theories—is
a sufficient proof that there is no possibility here of invoking luck
as an explanation of the concomitance of Croce’s and Gentile’s activity
with that of Mussolini. It is much nearer to historical truth to state
that Italy has reached one of those stages of her history in which
she has always yielded a rich harvest of men of genius, speculative,
political or artistic.
Any and every practical activity, says Croce, implies theoretical
activity, since no action can be performed without knowledge. This
however is not to be separated from the action; for the two forms
of the spirit are distinct, not separate. Thus in any action, while
the practical activity is explicit, the theoretical activity which
is knowledge is implicit; in fact they are _concomitant_. The man
of thought can no more think than walk without using his will; the
importance of the will is just as great for the thinker or the artist
as it is for the so-called practical man. But it is only through the
wearing of the Pragmatist’s blinkers that one can be brought to see in
the will the root of truth.
A distinction is, however, made by Croce between the knowledge required
for a practical act, such as the disposing of a regiment of infantry
for a review, and that of the philosopher or the artist. The one
is an intuition, the other is a conception, and to make the ground
of a volition you want both, for the combination is _historical_
knowledge. There, obviously enough, Croce reveals himself a true son of
Machiavelli, Vico, and de Sanctis. The Florentine secretary had been
hinting as much when he insisted on the necessity of our knowing the
_actual truth about things_ (since _human things are always moving_),
in order to govern _in harmony with the times_.
This _historical_ knowledge is not an idea that will surprise after all
that has been said about the constant tendency of Italy’s best thinkers
to test the practicability of any concept on the concrete ground of
history. To them, the natural realm of action being history, it was
manifest that any knowledge or theory is liable to be acted upon only
in so far as it is historical; and such knowledge becomes, under the
name of condition of fact, the ground of Croce’s conception of the
necessity and liberty of man’s will.
To the generally accepted ideas of means and end Croce was to bring a
most radical change. First he proceeds to prove that what is known as
the end, the purpose, or the aim is not to be distinguished from the
will. When I wash my hands my purpose is obviously that I should have
them clean; but then it is equally obvious that this means that I want
them to be clean. Turning to the means, the washing of my hands in
order to have them clean, supposes a condition of fact which means the
availableness of soap and water, for I could not will to wash my hands
if I had neither soap nor water. These material means are known by me
to be available when I make up my mind to wash my hands in order to get
them clean. So that purpose and means are all included in my act of
will, which is nothing more nor less than the actual act of washing my
hands. If the situation of fact did not include soap and water I could
at best _wish_ to wash them, never _will_ to do so.
What is consequently to be rejected once for all is the idea of a
definite plan that would not allow the taking into consideration of
the continual variation of the means. Thus the men of the Risorgimento
had to vary their purpose and to reconsider the means to attain it
after and before each campaign, having to take as their actual will
only that the realisation of which was in harmony with the then actual
situation of fact. So that we can say that their real will, the will
which created modern Italy, was exclusively that general will which was
individualised in their many splendid deeds of heroism or renunciations
of their former plans or ideals; these had been formed without the
historical knowledge which alone could make them realise what was the
situation of fact.
Now a good deal of admiration is usually bestowed on people of
good-will and of pure intentions. Here, however, the very existence of
such good-will, such pure intentions, is denied. The longing of the
man who wishes he could alter the present state of public affairs in
his country is not at all to be considered as a will to do so. For he
does not will to do so as long as he thinks it is impossible. A wish
of this kind has no value either economically or morally. Whatever the
circumstances, if he knows them well, he will know that there must be
at least one thing that he can do instead of deprecatingly shaking his
head as he reads the paper by the fire. When Machiavelli tried to form
a Tuscan Militia to free Florence from her trouble, he did not succeed;
but when he left his boisterous and rustic friends over their wine
and retired to the small library of his modest villa, he did the only
civic duty that was left to him to perform; he plunged his lancet into
the corrupted body of his country and prepared the way for the coming
centuries. Criticism, that is to say negative criticism, when the
country is in danger, or suggestion as to the ideal thing to be done,
unless they are part of a plan of reform so in keeping with facts that
it can be immediately acted upon, are merely pretending to be acts of
will. I cannot keep by my fireside or lean at my window deploring the
things which are going on and pretend that “I will to alter them.”
Yet it is often said that we can will the good in the abstract, while
unable to will it in the concrete, and this means simply that we may
have good intentions and yet behave badly. The answer to this has been
already given; it may be well, however, to state it once more. Willing
in the abstract, willing without acting accordingly, is equivalent to
not-willing, since, according to Croce, a volition implies a situation
historically determined from which it arises as an act equally
determined and concrete.
The importance assigned in this theory to the knowledge of the actual
situation of fact, and consequently to the historical judgment,
invests with the greatest importance the possibility of error. Such
possibility is, however, excluded by Croce from the theoretical realm
of mind; for lack of knowledge, ignorance, is not error. It belongs to
practical activity and we cannot err unwillingly. All errors are due
to an interference of the will with our apprehension of reality; and
as any volition is an assertion of our liberty we are responsible for
it. Everyone knows that immoderate passions or illegitimate interests
lead insidiously into error; that we err in order to be quick and
finish, or to obtain for ourselves undeserved repose—that we err by
acquiescence in old ideas, that is to say, in order not to allow
ourselves to be disturbed in our repose, and to prolong it unduly, and
so on. The possibility of erring in good faith is disposed of in this
way by rejecting the possibility of an error not due to our own will.
It thus becomes perfectly legitimate and wise to use practical measures
to induce those who err to correct themselves, punishing them when this
can be of any use. Croce’s defence of the Holy Inquisition, be it of
the old Romans against the Christians, of Catholics against heretics,
or of Protestants against Catholics must not be found surprising. It is
the logical conclusion of his view on the responsibility for error;
and he is not to be found shirking the consequences of his system
any more than the Fascists. For it is hardly necessary to point out
that their abhorrence of all vagueness and indefiniteness is bound to
determine responsibilities in practical activity and consequences in
theoretical activity. The necessity of having a single man responsible
for anyone of the public services has been mostly realised in
Anglo-Saxon countries; but where bureaucracy flourishes it is usually a
Board, a Committee, in a word an anonymous body which takes decisions
and steps for which nobody in particular is responsible. Therefore, to
any complaint the answer must be “we thought; the committee held; it
was generally supposed; the majority came to the conclusion ... that
...” In such case nobody stands responsible; and each member of the
Committee, or Board, throws on the others all the weight of the unhappy
step or decision.
With Croce’s theories such vagueness is destroyed at its root. The
will of the people who take a step is their taking of the step, and
both action and volition spring from their historical knowledge of
the actual situation of fact. Such knowledge is therefore part of
the action. The responsibility thus includes the assuming of the
information necessary to the taking of the decision. Naturally this
has always been the case, where man’s responsibility is really of
importance. On board a ship, for instance, the officer in command has
always known that his responsibility includes this knowledge. Ignorance
of fact is the greatest fault whenever a decision has to be taken,
whether the importance of the decision be great or small. This however,
must not be held to imply the judging of an action according to its
success. Historical judgments are not to be passed on the result of
past actions; historical judgment must be passed on acts, not on facts.
The distinction between action and event is by Croce emphasised as
being grounded on the distinction between the act of one man and the
act of the whole; and one might say that the action depends on the will
of man and the event on the will of God. According to this theory the
action of the man who shoots at Mussolini is the manifestation of his
will, and his failure is the manifestation of God’s will; because the
will of the whole, including the will of the chauffeur, who is driving
Mussolini’s car, the wills of the people crowding the edge of the
street, the wills of the guards told off to keep the road clear for the
car and the wills of the Fascists thronging to catch a glimpse of their
idol, which are also volition-actions, determine the event; and this
is usually termed Providence, or the rationality of history. Thus when
foreigners, even those who do not approve of Mussolini’s government,
and Italians, either religiously or coldly, repeat at each new attempt,
“the hand of God is on his head,” the conviction which they express is
perfectly in keeping with Croce’s view, and is by no means equivalent
to fatalism.
To express this relation of action to event in a less mystical form
it ought to be said that the volition-action of any single man is his
contribution to the volitions of the whole universe. On this point
Gentile produced another theory some eight or ten years after Croce had
given a systematic form to this doctrine which had been implicit in all
his former works. This double contribution of Italy to the conception
of conduct, if not an entirely new idea of liberty, provides two
very original views on that problem, one of those which have always
tormented humanity.
The first great step made by Croce was the consequences of his having
denied any possible distinction between the volition and the action;
for thus he was able to assert the oneness of liberty. We must no
longer speak of a liberty of will and a liberty of action.
He quotes here as an example the case of a paralytic gentleman carried
into the square in his servant’s arms during the revolt of 1542 and
found after the tumult on the top of a church-tower. The terror had
aroused in him such a will that he had climbed there. As a rule the
paralytic does not will because he knows he cannot, what he can do at
the most is to wish that he was in a different condition. It is quite
inexact to say that he who is threatened and yields to the threat
is deprived of his freedom of action. The old formula _coacti tamen
volunt_ says as much. Whenever people have been clamouring for greater
freedom of action, what they really wanted was to have the conditions
of fact altered. “Everyone knows,” says Croce,[6] “that no _vultus
instantis tyranni_ can extinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler,
be he ever so strong and violent, can prevent a rebellion, or when all
else fails, a noble death outwardly affirming the freedom within.”
Every step onward in Croce’s theories is admirably consequent upon the
statements that have preceded it. As man in his theoretical activity
apprehends the world and by knowing it makes it his, so through
practical activity he collaborates in its creation. The second being
grounded in the first, a will independent of knowing is unthinkable.
The blind will is not will; the true will has eyes.[7] Without this
it would be difficult to see how actions could be both free and
necessary. Indeed one can say that up to these Italian theories all the
contentions on liberty were waged between two tendencies, one leading
to the ever-recurrent conclusions of Determinism, the other to the
assertion of free will. To detect that actions are at once free and
determined it was necessary that knowledge of the actual conditions of
fact should be considered as the essential ground of any volition.
Volition thus is not considered as arising in the void, but in a
definite situation, under definite historical conditions, in relation
to an event which cannot be eliminated. When the situation changes the
act of will changes. This amounts to saying that it is necessitated by
the situation in which it arises. But it also means that such act of
will is free. For it does not make one with the situation, neither does
it produce a duplicate of it. The volition-action produces something
different, that is, something new; therefore it is initiative,
creation, an act of freedom. Were it not so, a volition would not be an
act of will and reality would not change through the action of men, it
would not become, would not grow upon itself.
“This consciousness of necessity and liberty inseparably united is
found in all men of action, in all political geniuses, who are never
inert or reckless: they feel themselves at once bound and not bound;
they always conform to facts, but always rise above them. The fatuous,
on the other hand, oscillate between the passive acceptance of the
given situation and the sterile attempt to overleap it, that is, to
leap over their own shadow. They are consequently now inert, now rash.
They, therefore, do not fix or conclude anything, they do not act; or,
if they do, it is always according to what of the actual situation they
have understood, and what of initiative they have displayed.”[8]
If Benedetto Croce had been a prophet he could not have better
contrasted Mussolini’s way of proceeding, always surrounded by experts
and never the slave of data, with the way in which former governments
proceeded in Italy, when ministers thought that by the grace of the
people they had received some sort of super-natural light to discharge
their duty. No practical activity could have been as vigorous as
the theoretical reaction of Croce and Gentile against the futility,
the abstractness, the pessimism, and above all the materialism that
were slowly but surely destroying the third Italy! But their joint
philosophical campaign, however brilliant it may have been, could not
arouse the working masses to the new gospel of civic life. This had to
be undertaken by a man of faith, endowed with the gifts that make the
statesman and the popular leader. But the fact that three such men are
contemporaries and that without previous arrangement the theoretical
activity of the two former coincide with the practical activity of the
third is a good argument on behalf of Croce’s theory of the freedom
and necessity of man’s action. The situation of fact is the same for
all three, and they therefore arise for the same purpose although they
endeavour to realise it through very different means.
Since man’s action, his volition-action, is free, the question whether
an individual has or has not been free to do what he has done is
equivalent to asking if he has done it or not. Thus again the character
of responsibility is emphasised in all human actions. Croce objects
very strongly to the way in which criminal lawyers put a poor madman
on a level with the guilty, for he who is mad is partially dead.
Practical good and evil can be now identified with will and anti-will,
with freedom and anti-freedom, with the reality of the will and its
unreality. For evil, when real, does not exist save in the good, which
opposes and conquers it; it is, therefore, merely the negative of good,
and it would be impossible to find an act of will distinctly willing
that which is evil as such. A man may want to intoxicate himself with
alcohol, but in the act of so doing he expects the warmth that will
spread in his limbs and the delightful oblivion that will free him
from all cares. Hence that which he expects from drink is good. Such
negativity of evil has always been current among theologians even
before the days of Thomas Aquinas; but the theory deduced by Croce from
it is quite original.
All practical activity is either economic, or both economic and moral.
The economic activity is that which wills and effects only what
corresponds to the condition of fact in which a man finds himself; the
ethical activity, although it corresponds to these conditions, is that
which transcends them.
Therefore, any act of the individual’s will is economic, but to be
moral it must be an act of the universal will. The former is judged by
the greater or less coherence of the action in itself, the other by
its greater or less coherence in respect to the universal end which
transcends the individual. No act can be moral without being economic,
for however universal it may be in its meaning my action must be mine
in order to be something concrete and individually determined. In
practical life we do not meet with morality as a universal, but always
with a determinate moral volition. On the other hand, it is easy to
see that our actions always obey a rational law, even when moral law
is suppressed; so that, when every inclination that transcends the
individual has been set aside, it is necessary to will this or that
coherently, not to oscillate between two or more volitions at the same
time. And if we succeed in really obtaining our desire, if, while the
moral consciousness is for the moment suspended within us, we abandon
ourselves to the execution of a project of vengeance and execute a
masterpiece of ability, even when, in this case, human society does
not approve, we for our part feel satisfied, at least so long as the
suspension of the moral consciousness lasts; for we have done what
we wanted to do, we have tasted, though but for a little while, the
pleasure of the gods.
The economic form of activity we easily recognise as individual,
hedonistic, utilitarian, and economic; the moral form is just as
easily identified. To be moral, an action must first satisfy us as
individuals occupying a definite point of time and space, and must also
satisfy in us the transcendental being who defies time and space. Croce
having made this distinction absolutely clear, could face the question
concerning the nature of law.
To him law is a _volitional act_ concerning a _class_ of actions.
Therefore, where the volitional element or the element of class is
wanting, there cannot be law. Obviously, however, the law is abstract;
the act of will is, according to Croce, always of the individual,
and the element of class is sufficient to deprive the law of anything
like concrete life, be it an individual law or a social law. Since
the freedom of human actions is logically bound up with his notion
of practical activity, it is impossible to object that there is an
essential difference between the programme of life laid down by any
single man for himself, the programme of action laid down by any
association, and the laws laid down by the state, the first being
merely a matter of acceptance and the last relying on compulsion.
Indeed, it is obvious enough that by compulsion one usually means
the alternative of complying with the law or facing a penalty. Such
alternative is the ground of a choice, and the citizen usually chooses,
but always freely chooses, to obey the law rather than endure the
penalty. The fact that some men do rebel is sufficient to prove that
freedom cannot be abolished by compulsion.
Then what is the essential difference between individual and social
law? An attempt is usually made to differentiate them by saying that
the latter has emanated from and is sustained by a _supreme power_. But
where is the seat of this supreme power? Surely not in anything like a
super-individual, dominating individuals. It is only to be found in the
individuals themselves. And in this case its power and value correspond
with the power of the individuals who compose it; it is the law of a
circle empirically considered to be larger and stronger, but whose will
is law in so far as the individuals composing it spontaneously conform
to such a will, because they recognise the convenience of doing so.
Monarchs who believed themselves to be all-powerful, have realised
at certain moments that their power rested in a universal consensus
of opinion, failing which their power vanished, or was reduced to a
gesture of solitary command, not far from being ridiculous.
Going back to the definition of laws as _volitional_ acts concerning
classes of actions, Croce shows that the so-called laws of nature or
of grammar are no laws at all, because the act of will is lacking in
them. Neither is the jurist, quietly elaborating rules from cases, a
legislator. His excogitations will have to wait for a man of will, who
alone, and _sword in hand_, will endow them with the character of law.
On the other hand the so-called moral law, economic law, are no laws
at all inasmuch as they lack the element of class! “Will the good,”
“Will the true,” “Will the useful,” are all statements in which a
volition is expressed, but then the object of such will is invariably
the _universal_, whereas laws have for object something _general_; a
_class_, not a concept. In short moral law, logical law, or economic
law ought to be called principles instead of laws.
The character of laws being general and not universal, is perfectly in
keeping with their mutability; since actual conditions are constantly
changing. It is necessary to add new laws to the old, to retouch these
or to abolish them altogether. Philosophically speaking, there is but
one cause of changing the laws, viz., the will that in its liberty
produces the new law in new conditions of fact. The question whether
we should recognise Conservatism or Revolution as the fundamental
concept of practical life, does not concern Croce in the least. For him
every Conservative is also Revolutionary, since he is always obliged
to adapt to the new facts the law that he wishes to preserve. Every
Revolutionary is also a Conservative, since he is obliged to start
from certain laws that he preserves, at any rate provisionally, that
he may change others and substitute for them new laws, which he in
his turn intends to preserve. Cavour, to use Croce’s own example, was
a Conservative in respect of certain problems, and revolutionary in
respect of others, to such a degree that he seemed to the Mazzinians to
be a Conservative and to the clericals and legitimists a Revolutionary.
The demand for an eternal code, a universal, rational, or natural
justice, in its claim to fix the transitory, is in open contradiction
with the historical and, therefore, contingent character of laws.
Were Natural Law permitted to enforce itself once for all we should
witness, with the formation and application of the eternal code, the
cessation _ipso facto_ of Development, the end of History, the death of
Life and the dissolution of Reality. Such an end of the world cannot
take place because, if it is possible to develop theories which are in
contradiction to life, it is quite impossible to make them concrete
and actual: God, that is to say Reality, does not allow this to be
done. Of such theories the best examples are surely Absolute Monarchy
and Communism. Both as an ideal present themselves as an absolute, a
perfect form of government and, therefore, would be, if realised, the
end of life. Anything perfect in the way of political institutions
would put a stop to any further progress since the new needs spring
from the actual short-comings of present institutions, and from the new
needs the new projects which will bring about new institutions.
The most intelligent Communists know nowadays that the historical
necessities which have brought their party to the fore were economic
and that that which has been done in passing, such as the improvement
of working-class conditions, both materially and intellectually, is
indeed what should have been its real aim. But Providence permits
men to act upon their own motives; and well it may, since the will
of the whole can always have the last word. Communists have done all
they that have in the belief that it was done only in the process of
getting nearer to their ultimate aim, the abolition of classes. The
kings of France who, little by little, destroyed the Feudal order, and
by so doing brought about the unification of France and the rise of
the _bourgeoisie_, may have thought that they were merely working for
the establishment of an absolute monarchy. Their real work, that is to
say the task which was laid out for them by Providence, was to create
a great nation and destroy Feudalism in France through the necessity
in which they found themselves of getting the support of the middle
and lower class in order to destroy the petty sovereignties of the
great vassals. But when this was achieved the absoluteness in their
conception of monarchy was bound to be the cause of its fall. For had
it been possible it would have meant the cessation of development.
A form of government if it is absolute is perfect, and it is the
imperfection which calls for further development. Now Communism makes
the same mistake when aiming at bringing about so perfect a society
that it would not even need a government. If this came to be it would
be the end of the world.
But this is anticipating Mussolini’s realisation of the fact, and it
may be sufficient to state that Croce’s ideas, stated here together,
were scattered explicitly in several essays published between 1897
and 1900, and collected for the first time in 1907 while they were
implicitly pervading the whole of his own writings and those of
innumerable journalists as well as running on the lips of the
Professors who taught in upper schools and universities.
On this point of the essential mutability of laws and institutions,
Croce lays a great stress. “We often meet in history with projects
of new laws which are said to be better than the old, or good by
comparison with those judged more or less bad, the new ones being
proposed as _natural_ or _rational_ justice, whilst the old ones
are rejected as unnatural or irrational, just as passionate erotic
temperaments, uninstructed by the experience of their past, believe
with the utmost seriousness that their new love will be constant and
eternal. Such ‘Natural laws’ are historical, are transitory, like all
others. All men know how, in certain times, and places, religious
tolerance, freedom of trade, private property, constitutional monarchy,
have been proclaimed eternal, and in other times and places the
extirpation of unbelievers, commercial protection, communism, the
republic and anarchy.”[9]
From what has been said it might be taken that Croce has been merely
destroying the religious reverence of his countrymen for the actual
apparel of law. Nothing can be farther from truth. His contention was
that laws being manifestations of man’s will must change with the
changes in facts. The ideas of the eighteenth or nineteenth century
can no longer be a living reality. The reality which he denies to the
law itself he recognises as belonging to the single act done under the
law, that is to say to the execution of the law. The indubitable truth,
as to the necessity of acting in each case according to historical
necessities, has induced people at different times and in different
places, to proclaim the sheer uselessness of law. Benedetto Croce is
most definitely against such theories. According to him, the best
arguments to be used against them can be drawn from history itself, and
if they do not rigorously demonstrate the necessity of laws they show
well enough that such necessity has been generally felt in all lands
and in all times. The necessity of laws, ordinances, justice, and the
state, appears at all points of human history. Better a bad government
than no government at all; and those who declaim against laws can well
do so at their ease, for the law surrounds, protects, and preserves
their life for them.