The Essence of Aesthetic

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PREFACE

WHEN 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 Educatio