The Essence of Aesthetic/Preface

I first visited Naples, in 1909, I was quite unprepared for making the discovery of a new philosopher, and nothing was further from my mind than to become his prophet to the English-speaking world. Yet so it has happened.

If I may be permitted the use of metaphor and to take the eternal activities of the spirit of man as equivalent to the eternal ideas of Plato, yet far more real than they, because immanent and not transcendental, and if I may push yet further the metaphor and figure these activities of the spirit as planets, then one might say that Croce is the Adams-Leverrier of philosophy, and his Theory of Æsthetic the discovery of the planet Neptune. For just as those astronomer-mathematicians proved the independent existence of that planet, hitherto unknown, by observing the perturbations it set up throughout the planetary system, so Croce has proved the independent existence of Æsthetic, the last of the great planetary activities of the spirit of man to come into line with thought. Just as the action of Neptune was falsely attributed to other causes, so the action of Æsthetic has been falsely confused with Ethic, Economic and Logic. Croce has disentangled and proved its independence. And just as we can now say that there is no other planet to be discovered in the heavens, so we can say that there is no other activity of the spirit to be discovered.

Returning to 1909 and my visit to Naples, I was not long in finding a copy of the “Estetica,” and a single reading made clear to me its supreme importance. Although first published in 1901, no notice whatever had been taken of it in the English-speaking world. How long this might have continued, it is idle to surmise, but the fact that by far the greatest history of Italian literature (De Sanctis’), which dates from about the middle of last century, yet awaits translation and is little known in Great Britain, leads one to suppose that a like fate might have been in store for Croce’s discovery.

That is now for ever averted, as I have had the pleasure and privilege of presenting the English-speaking world with my translation of the “Complete System of the Philosophy of the Spirit,” in four volumes, besides other works by the master, such as the application of the theories of the Æsthetic to the greatest poets of Europe: Dante, Ariosto, Shakespeare, Corneille, to name them chronologically.

The present little volume, entirely original in statement, contains, as the author says, the condensation of his most important thoughts upon the subject of Æsthetic. In his belief, it may prove of use to young folk and others who wish to study poetry, and art in general, seriously. He is of opinion that the study of Æsthetic is perhaps better adapted to the understanding of philosophy than that of any other branch, for no other subject awakens youthful interest so soon as art and poetry. Logic remains, perhaps, rather severe and abstract, Ethic is apt to sound too like a “preachment,” and what is called “Psychology” is rather a turning away from than a guide to Philosophy. The problems of art, on the other hand, not only lead more easily to the habit of thought upon themselves, but also whet the appetite and sharpen the teeth for biting into the marrow of those other problems, which, since all are contained in the spirit, form with it an ideal whole.

Little remains to be said, beyond mentioning that the “Essence of Æsthetic” was originally written by Croce and translated by me to celebrate the inauguration of the great Rice Institute, of Houston, Texas, in 1912. Croce was invited to address the University personally, but he was even then too busy with his own country’s affairs and his enormous literary labours, and the learned and courteous President Odell Lovett therefore kindly accepted the written essay in lieu of the actual presence of the philosopher. I was also, and for the same reason, obliged to decline, on his behalf, the giving of the Gifford Lectures in 1912.

The University of Columbia has recently presented Croce with its gold medal for the most original and important contribution to literature during the past five years, and his present position in the Italian Government as Cabinet Minister and Minister for Education (accepted solely from a sense of duty) are, I think, proof that his merits are beginning to be recognised.

Plato, returning discomfited from Sicily, where he had failed to realise his conception of the Philosopher-King, would have taken heart could he have seen his remote brother and descendant, a scion of Greater Greece, so valiantly, so disinterestedly, ruling alike in the worlds of thought and practical life. For did he not lay it down as a condition that those only should rule who would fain be left to their lofty meditations?






 * 1, Pall Mall, S.W. 1.


 * January, 1921.