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diff --git a/77090-h/77090-h.htm b/77090-h/77090-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41a68c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/77090-h/77090-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8476 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The pedigree of fascism | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%; visibility: hidden;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +ul.index { list-style-type: none; } +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 1em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} +li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + text-indent: -2em; + padding-left: 1em; +} + +table { + + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 30em; +} + +.parttop {padding-top: 1em; } +.partbottom {padding-bottom: 1em;} +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} +.tdc {text-align: center;} + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.right {text-align: right;} + +.smaller {font-size: x-small;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +/* Footnotes */ + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +/* uncomment the next line for centered poetry */ +/* .poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} */ +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + width: 40em; + font-size:small; + padding:1em; + margin-top:2em; + margin-bottom:2em; + margin-left:auto; + margin-right:auto; +} + + +/* Poetry indents */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent18 {text-indent: 6.0em;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77090 ***</div> + + +<h1> +THE<br> +PEDIGREE OF<br> +FASCISM +</h1> + +<p class="center"> +A POPULAR ESSAY ON THE WESTERN<br> +PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS<br> +<br> +<br> +BY<br> +<span style="font-size:x-large;">ALINE LION</span><br> +<i>Lady Margaret Hall, Oxon.</i><br> +<br> +<br> +LONDON:<br> +SHEED & WARD<br> +31, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 4 +</p> + + +<hr> +<div class="center"> +<div style="display: inline-block;"> +TO<br> +JOHN WALTER, ESQ.,<br> +TO WHOSE QUESTIONS I OWE<br> +THE FIRST IDEA OF THIS BOOK.<br> +<p class="right">A. L.</p> +</div> + +<div style="margin-top:4em;"> +<i>First Published</i>, 1927 +</div> +</div> + +<hr> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="tdc parttop" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">Part I</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc partbottom" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">THE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdl smaller">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdr smaller">PAGE</td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Is Fascism a Revolution?</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Liberalism in Italy</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Nationalism and Socialism</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The European War and its Effects</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td class="tdc parttop" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">Part II</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc partbottom" colspan="3"><span class="smcap">PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Philosophical Antecedents</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Humanism and Renaissance</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70">70</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Seventeenth Century</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Seventeenth Century in France</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">V.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giambattista Vico</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VI.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Illuminism in England and France</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_137">137</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Nineteenth Century in Italy</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Benedetto Croce</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IX.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Giovanni Gentile</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_189">189</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">X.</td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Benito Mussolini</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Index</span></td> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_235">235</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="AUTHORS_NOTE"> + AUTHOR’S NOTE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>I should, perhaps, say from the first that I am neither +Italian nor Fascist. Yet, having lived in Italy from 1913 +to 1927, I cannot but be conscious of the fact that the +country has undergone a deep change, and have come to +the conclusion that it is a change for the better. My +purpose in writing this book has been to bring to the +knowledge of people possessed of a fair amount of general +knowledge, the conclusions that might be formed by a +specialist with regard to this change and the value of it. +Incidentally I have endeavoured to discourage both those +who would import Fascism, as it flourishes in Italy, into +other countries, and those who would hinder the spread +of that philosophy which, I hold, is its basis.</p> + +<p>It is necessary to avoid, when possible, definitely +partisan sources of information; therefore I have turned +to the works of Michele Rosi for the history of politics +and to Frederick Windelband for the history of philosophy +wherever general reading has proved inadequate or my +memory failed.</p> + +<p>In conclusion I must offer special thanks to Sir Frank +Fox for his careful reading of my manuscript and his +invaluable suggestion with regard to it. I am also most +grateful to the following whom I have consulted as to +historical or philosophical accuracy—Professor G. A. +Smith, Professor G. C. Webb, Mrs. Anne MacCormick, +Miss Jamison, Miss Mary Coate and Mr. R. G. Collingwood.</p> + +<p class="right">ALINE LION.</p> + +<p><i>Lady Margaret Hall,</i><br> +<i>Oxford.</i> +</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Part_I"> + <span class="smcap">Part I</span> + <br> + THE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + </h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + IS FASCISM A REVOLUTION? + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>If one may judge of the importance of a political event by +the number of articles and books printed on the subject +there is no question but that Fascism is one of the most +important movements of the post-war world. Strange to say, +however, the light thrown by most of these publications fails +to illuminate the points most interesting to foreigners. This +is probably due first of all to the fact that most of the writers +have written either for or against it; moreover, this movement, +being peculiarly Italian, is difficult for a foreign +mind to grasp. In any case, it is a fact that in spite of all the +good or bad will of the journalists this revolution is far from +being understood. The lack of intelligent information regarding +it is felt everywhere; and it would be difficult to say +whether the misrepresentation is greater among those who +admire it and, seeing in it a universal remedy for all modern +woes, want to introduce its method in other countries; or +among those who consider it just as a matter of incidental +and local politics. I shall try to put it in its historical setting, +and I shall consider myself fortunate if I can throw light on +its relation to the political past of Italy, and to the present +political conceptions of other countries.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span></p> + +<p>The first question that invariably arises is whether +Fascism is or is not a revolution. This, however, must be +answered by another: what is a revolution? No word +stands in greater need of a sound, common-sense definition, +yet a definition of it stands on the very threshold of any +impartial research on Fascism.</p> + +<p>Is revolution merely a change of government? This is not +sufficient. If it were, the fall of Louis Philippe from the +throne of France would be a revolution; yet it is obviously +by a license that one speaks of it as the Revolution of ’48. +The form of government may change without any substantial +alteration of the régime. Then does revolution imply a +change of régime? Yes, but, again, what is exactly a change +of régime?</p> + +<p>Without following any further this method of investigation +let us define Fascism as the introduction of a new conception +of the relation between State and Citizen, a new conception +of political reality. It is, therefore, a doctrine, a +system, and as such is philosophy expressing itself in +history. This admitted, it is necessary to guard against the +abstract bent. of philosophical researches. The deepest +currents of speculative thought would never bring about a +single change of government by themselves; but then they +do not exist by themselves. It is only in the synthesis of +history that we find them at play in the world of historical +reality, which is what it is because thoughts and deeds are +one.</p> + +<p>The March on Rome did certainly mark the confluence of +two streams coming to mingle their waters between the +banks of the Tiber. One was torrential, the impulse coming +from a fifty years’ accumulation of economic and political +mistakes in Italy. The other was deeper, slower, the contribution +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>of centuries of Italian philosophy enriched by the +intellectual thought of all Europe. The torrent is represented +by the political antecedents of Fascism: the deep +stream by the philosophical antecedents of Fascism.</p> + +<p>To illustrate my figure a period of history presents itself +as an example. It does not correspond exactly to the +present movement in Italy, but it is at any rate familiar to +one and all: the French Revolution. We see there, also, +the typical stream of philosophical life carving a deep bed +for the river to come: in the minds of intellectuals, in the +consciousness of the people, abstract theories or works of +artistic vulgarisation, prepare the bed for the river that +will become, under the impulsion of actual circumstances, +an irresistible torrent. So that this revolution whose intellectual +pedigree makes it the offspring of Descartes, and +Hobbes, of Grotius, Locke and the English political writers, +besides the Encyclopædists, Voltaire and Rousseau, has to +the highest degree the qualities that make it an element of +universal life, and a fertilising principle in the politics of all +Europe. On the other hand it receives, undoubtedly from +the economic and political conditions of France, the particular +determinations that distinguish it as French, as belonging +to the eighteenth century. The form it took actually between +1790 and 1795 could not be introduced anywhere else; under +that form it was exclusively French, because—we must +insist on the point—it had received it as its actual and concrete +determination from its immediate antecedents.</p> + +<p>Actuation, realisation, concrete life, whatever the field +we move in, whether we consider politics, artistic creation, +or natural life, it requires two elements, the one universal, +the other particular. Now history shows that the universal +element spreads, notwithstanding frontiers and the will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>of men. Its force of expansion is a quality common to all +ideas; but the particular is not to be imported, and it is +as impossible to introduce it in foreign lands as it is to +confine the other to any land. Hence the political applications +of the same theories in different countries differ +from each other as do the countries themselves. These +differences, economic, political, religious, intellectual, +in a word the historical differences existing between two +countries determine the differences that the same theory +will undergo when it is adopted by the people of different +nations.</p> + +<p>The Italian patriots at the end of the eighteenth century +were very few, and all, without exception, intellectuals. +Some belonged to the higher or lower aristocracy, some +belonged to the upper middle class, but all were scholars, +men of the widest reading. It would be difficult to find +nowadays a body of men so well informed. For one thing, +production has increased immensely and life has lost the +leisure that allowed intellectual tastes to be satisfied. The +fact remains that at the close of that century Italy could +boast of men aware of its inferior position, of its non-existence +as a nation. Such men were ready to try anything, +and did try to imitate the French revolution in so +far as they could by founding the small republics that +lasted one season or two, dying away like plants of distant +countries, when they are planted in our soil. Their zeal, +however, was not sterile, they failed in their immediate +purpose, because they wanted to introduce not only ideas +but the actual form in which these were expressed. A +constitution, a battle, the plan of a town, a project of +economic reform, each of these things is an expression +endowed with an æsthetic value varying with the degree +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>of perfection attained by the man who worked it out, and +gave the idea that prompted him a suitable realisation. +But the essential quality of the æsthetic creator is to be +on a particular theme, the voice of his time and of the +body of men he represents in his act of creation. The men +of the revolution were by no means fair representatives +of the people of France; but when they drew up the +constitution they certainly realised on the whole the +desiderata of most Frenchmen. Giving expression, giving +form to the ideas that had agitated the whole century, +they did it in the only way that could be a French way in +those days.</p> + +<p>Now the will of Napoleon, when he wished Italy to be +politically a copy of France, was a very empirical will, and +the men who tried to carry out his wishes because they +loved Italy were not any more transcendental. In this +question they took no notice of what were the spiritual +and political conditions of their country, and yet surely +a constitution is an expression of mind. In all this however +their blunder paved the way to a better understanding of +the matter. Everybody realised that in order to have anything +like an independent government the first thing was +to be a great and unified country. When the ideas that +had led in France to the Revolution and Republic were +developed in Italy, according to the mentality of the great +Italians, they blended with all that was particular to Italy +and expressed themselves in an Italian movement: the +Risorgimento. It cannot be over emphasised, for the +importance of the point is great; the same ideas that +caused the Republic to become for more than a century +the form of French government, gave birth to the Kingdom +of Italy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<p>Roughly, the same can be said of Fascism. Its ideas and +doctrine will spread whether they meet with favour or hostility, +because they are Italian just as Liberalism is English, +that is to say they are Italian in their methods of actuation +and perfectly universal in their philosophical content.</p> + +<p>“Equality, fraternity, liberty,” was the eighteenth +century cry, and it might be the cry of the Fascists. Their +revolutionary contribution to the history of politics is the +denial of natural rights, natural rights being understood +as something the determination of which is anterior to +the birth of man, as the quality of a cabbage or a rose +tree is anterior to its birth. Right is so narrowly linked to +duty that for this school of thought it cannot be anterior +to consciousness. Therefore man must be considered and +rated in the State only according to spiritual value and +actual economic or intellectual interest.</p> + +<p>The natural rights of man are denied. The spiritual +value, entitling man to citizenship, cannot be acquired +by him once for all and enjoyed without effort. He must +daily and continuously be working for the vindication of +the rights he has won, and for the conquest of those he +seeks. Citizenship is not a chattel lying in a man’s possession: +its only reality is bound to the performing of the +duties correlative of rights. There Fascism meets with all +our religious communities; in all Israelite and Christian +Communities or Churches the new-born child is admitted +on the pledge, taken for him by sponsors, that he will discharge +his duties and accept the law of the community +of which he becomes a member. Such a pledge he has to +confirm on his coming to adult state.</p> + +<p>Citizenship becomes, finally, with the whole of political +reality, a moral, spiritual and Christian reality, and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>only real equality of men can be attained in a State in +which each man is rated according to actual value. For +citizenship, taken as a birthright of man, is a remains of +Pagan times, when it was the lot of some to be born slaves +and of some to be born citizens.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + LIBERALISM IN ITALY + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>For the foreigner interested in the political affairs of +Italy a study of the pedigree of the two elements of +Fascism is essential in order to distinguish what is exclusively +Italian from what is to become universal. +It is therefore necessary to trace, or at least attempt to +trace, this pedigree in spite of the difficulty of the task.</p> + +<p>Fascism presents itself at first as being essentially the +expression of the national consciousness of Italy. So it is; +but it must be stated at once that it is the national consciousness +recently acquired by the people of Italy, which, +like an uncontrollable force, has worked itself out, taking +Fascism as its expression. Without this distinction the +student is induced by its nationalist character to see in +the present movement the last act of the long drama of +wars and agitations that led to the independence and +unification of the country. The truth is, that though it is +practically the epilogue of that drama, Fascism cannot be +identified with the Risorgimento. The spirit which animated +the men of the days of Cavour and Garibaldi is +totally and essentially different from that which impels +the followers of Mussolini to act as they do. The wars of +independence were due to the initiative of an aristocratic +minority; whose aristocratic and intellectual qualities +distinguished them and perhaps ensured their success. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>The leaders of the Risorgimento were not hampered by +anything like a popular following; and their eventual +agreement as to what was best for their cause was always +made certain by this intellectual selectness. All were +able, like Garibaldi and Mazzini, to see things as they +were and to act accordingly, not only to the extent of +sacrificing their lives but of sacrificing their dearest ideals +as well. Republicans, they accepted monarchy; ministers, +of their own free will they relinquished power to place it +in hands they thought more fit than their own to realise +their dream; staunch Catholics, during their life they +fought the Church in its temporal politics, in an age when +the best educated priests would not admit and could not +even see the possibility of distinction between temporal +and spiritual power. Only religious and idealistic men +can realise by how much such sacrifices surpassed for +them the gift of money, liberty, or even life. There is one +English word that sums up what these Italian liberators +were, whether noblemen, solicitors, writers, professors, +officers, doctors: they were <i>gentlemen</i> of good classical +education and wide reading who had assimilated what was +best in Europe. The common people, one cannot insist +too much upon the fact, remained indifferent at best, and +that only as long as their interests were not affected; the +lower middle class were hostile, that is to say the shop +people and all the multitude of small functionaries who +saw their daily bread dependent on the existing state of +things, were openly against any change. How could such +people feel the need or see the possibility of building up a +nation, one nation, out of the harlequin coat presented +by the map of Italy?</p> + +<p>Thus a free hand was guaranteed to the small number +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>of Italian gentlemen then endowed with heroic souls. +They had nobody to consult, they were a State in +themselves, a State without a lower class. Perhaps for +the last time in the history of the world we see there +realised the classical republic without a political plebs. +No wonder that they worked a miracle; they belonged +politically to different states, and yet by the force of their +ideal they attained that oneness of conscience which gives +personality and reality to a nation. The spirit of the +nation existed before its material realisation; there is no +better illustration of the new notion that Fascism is +bringing to the fore in the world of concrete history, that +of the nation as a spiritual reality, independent of geographical +and ethnographical determinations. Never in +history has this notion received a more complete and +actual realisation than in this first dawn of the national +life in Italy. The reality of the nation had its first affirmation +in the sacrifice of these men, for it is obvious that no +sober man would give up life, liberty, wealth, for something +unreal; and, in fact, the reality of Italy as a nation +ceased to be questioned then and there.</p> + +<p>Every advantage, of course, has its disadvantage. As +the pioneers of the Risorgimento did not need the people, +they overlooked all the problems that the necessity of +obtaining popular collaboration would have compelled +them to face. All economic and social questions were overlooked +except by a very few; the spiritual education of +the lower class was not even suggested in their programme +of action. Their aims were the independence and the +political unity of Italy, and to that goal they directed their +hearts and minds indifferent to the needs of practical life, +and to all the obstacles that seemed to make their dream +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>a theme for the lyrical effusions of poets. In fact they were +poets, all of them, for they created a reality out of an ideal +vision that was more an intuition than an intellectual +conception. The very manner in which they carried out +their revolution was æsthetic more than practical; they +shut their eyes to all that was in contradiction to their +dream, exactly as the artist does who strives to express +an intuition through material realisation, and in order +not to let the objective world crowd his mind deliberately +shuts his eyes to it, to everything that is not his present +ideal.</p> + +<p>The economic and social questions could not in any +case have been faced, still less dealt with, as long as the +nation was not a political reality. Any attempt would +have been sterile and perhaps even harmful. First, it +would have led the people to believe that under the then +present conditions the economic organisation of each little +state might have been so planned as to ensure the material +well-being of the population, that they could receive a +greater share of political importance and therefore of +administrative attention from the local governments and +thus be better off in the harlequin coat than under the +flag of a united Italy. It was, moreover, expedient to +hold to the singleness of purpose that was more likely to +make action coherent all through the peninsula; only +such singleness of aim made it possible to men of so +different temperament and breeding as professional men +and noblemen, Tuscans and Sicilians, Freemasons and +ardent Catholics, to think and therefore to act in positive +harmony.</p> + +<p>When a bullet has hit the bull’s-eye it has fulfilled its +purpose, and stays there in helpless immobility or falls +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>to the ground a useless thing. It was meant for that shot, +and is bound to be purposeless when it has made its mark. +The generations of Carlo Alberto and Mazzini, of Vittorio +Emmanuele and Cavour, had certainly hit the mark when +Rome had become the capital of Italy. Was it to be expected +that men who had identified themselves with the +goal should be able to take another goal and fit themselves +to a new task? Or could it be that the realisation +of the new State should bring, as its immediate consequence, +a ready-made generation of statesmen? Indeed, +if there is one thing that cannot be produced by a magic +wand, it is a body of able and trained political men.</p> + +<p>When the days of heroic deeds were over the makers of +Italy turned to the government of the new realm and +found themselves faced by all the problems of national life. +Inspiration and idealism proved out of place, and although +theirs was, what would have been called in England or in +France, a Conservative government, they had to rely on +a very strange electoral body. While they did not extend +the vote at once, they found in the middle class a set of +Arrivists with an imperative egoism that was to prove +the curse of political life in Italy. It is difficult for an +English, French, or American citizen to realise the kind +of problems with which these men were beset. Above all +it is difficult to an Englishman; England has had five or +six centuries of political experience, a length of time +sufficient to produce electors and mandatories able to +realise what are the duties of the executive as well as of +the legislature. In Italy, on the other hand, the nineteenth +century has seen all stage of political development succeeding +one another in a hurly-burly that has a good deal +in common with the succession of the events of a man’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>life on a cinema film. He passes from childhood to youth, +and on to manhood, maturity and old age in a couple of +hours. If he actually could crowd all experience into a +couple of years the proportion would be better; but he +would have no fairer notion of reality and of his own +rights and duties at any stage of his life than the Italians +could be expected to have when they had to pass in less +than fifty years through the political stages successively +experienced by the people of other countries in several +centuries.</p> + +<p>Now no student of the history of politics, or even of art, +ignores the fact that when a nation has reached a political +or artistic form it is in the process of getting a mastery of +that form that criticisms arise, and that out of criticism +comes the idea, confused at first, then clearer and clearer, +of the form that is to supersede it. This is, in fact, the +process of dialectic: it is the dialectic of history; and in +spite of the wish to avoid any special terminology, it is +better to call the process by its own name. At first people +struggle to reach a certain form of government, and that +moment of dialectic ends when the form is reached; they +then apply it more and more fully and, during its application, +discover its limitations; this second moment ends +in criticism of the whole theory; finally they set themselves +to remedy its shortcomings. This last moment +coincides in the people with the free consciousness of dissatisfaction, +and in the leaders with a clear understanding +of the new tendencies to be satisfied, so that it is not +theoretical to say that the people learn to use a new form +whilst they are using, then discarding, the one that came +before it. In Italy nothing of the sort happened. The +international culture of its scholars put them in contact +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>with all that was best or worst in the politics of Europe. +They would have been ashamed to be behindhand in +what was considered social progress.</p> + +<p>Then two uncommon factors came into play after 1870. +To make Italy, it had been necessary to trample upon a +good deal of historical tradition. Not all the local governments +were as bad during the eighteenth century as they +were said to be. Moreover, paramount had been the +prestige of the Popes. Against all the Conservative forces +the men of the Risorgimento had appeared as a lot of +Jacobins; they had to fight the Church in its temporal +power, and although this power was not essential to +religion it had behind it a tradition of ten centuries. With +the government of the Popes the whole Italian civilisation +was closely connected; indeed, the best brains of Italy +have always realised that, whatever the faults of the +Church, Italy is first of all a Catholic country. Anti-clericals +in their political activity, men like de Sanctis, +would not have printed a word against the Church as +historians. Indeed, the greatest thinkers of the time, +Gioberti and Rosmini, tried very hard to be good Catholics +and great philosophers at the same time.</p> + +<p>Yet since they could not doubt that Italy must have +Rome for its capital as the seal of its political unity, the +Popes had to be deprived of their temporal sovereignty. +The feeling about Rome was one of historical mysticism, +and seldom, if ever, have men found themselves thrown +into an irreligious attitude by a sentiment of that kind. +No contradiction could have been more profound, for it +brought these ardent lovers of their remotest past to make +use of forces that were antagonistic to the one institution +that linked their present to this same past. However, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>there was no alternative; adopting Illuminism as one of +the chief currents animating modern life, they had as their +most precious support the anti-Catholic movement, to +which, as a matter of fact, a great many of them belonged. +Anti-Catholicism had a great weakness in that it was not +a national product, but had been introduced into political +life as a necessary stimulant to rouse the people from their +slumbers, as will be seen later on; now that they were +awake it divided the nation and prevented the welding of +the new tradition to its history of twenty centuries.</p> + +<p>The statesmen of this epoch had no experience of the +administration and government of a big State: they were +not conscious of the problems of international relations; +they knew nothing of the economic and social exigencies +of a population exceeding thirty millions of souls.</p> + +<p>The people had no political education whatsoever. On +the other hand, the leaders would not be retrograde and +became more and more liberal, at a rate that did not allow +the people to be prepared by experience for successive +steps in popular government. The sequence of reforms +was not historical, was not dialectical: it did not correspond +with the spiritual and economic development of the +people, but was introduced to make up for lost time and +bring Italy up to the Western European level as fast as +possible.</p> + +<p>With no tradition to make up ballast, the so-called +“Right” could not be termed Conservative because it +originated in a revolution, and it kept its old ideal as a +target after it had been realised, and therefore had ceased +to be a principle of action.</p> + +<p>What was to be expected under such conditions? The +wonder is that the nation did not go to pieces, and that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>work of two generations of constructive men was not +destroyed by their incapacity to husband what they had +created. In the face of such facts one cannot help thinking +of Vico and his identification of divine Providence with +the rationality of history. This people was politically at +the nursery stage; it had no modern political science of +its own, and therefore none of its legislative acts were +based on actual and practical understanding of what were +the national necessities. They were inspired by the +example of foreign governments and, consequently, could +not meet Italy’s peculiar necessities. What did for the +others could not do for Italy. Yet it was impossible to +keep back a people so well informed of modern progress.</p> + +<p>The Italian Liberals, it must be said for their immortal +fame, had the clear-sightedness necessary to attain their +aims, inasmuch as they had reduced them to a formula +that could be accepted by all the other patriots. “Italy, +one and free,” was their aim, and to this aim nobody could +object. The flaw of such an aim is that it is too simple to +correspond to actual reality. It sounds like an algebraical +axiom, and, indeed, is just as abstract in its basis as any +mathematical formula.</p> + +<p>For the Liberals the nation was exclusively constituted +by its territorial expansion and by the unification of the +people of the different states therein included. They could +not change their aim, and when they had to administer +the new realm their eagerness and singleness of purpose +often blinded them to reality. As the unity they had +reached was formal, if one can term it so, their legislation +purposely ignored the differences between Sicilians and +Tuscans; and in their haste to unify internally what was +already externally one, they imposed what could at best +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>be formal and artificial unity. Every annexation had been +preceded by a local struggle, and success was not sufficient +to cause equanimity in the triumphant party. All that +had existed under the old régime was an object of hatred +to the Liberals; and their ministers, even when they +kept above such feelings, were none the less unable to discriminate +between the antiquated local laws and those +that were still useful and even good. They destroyed local +institutions, often created to meet actual requirements, to +impose, for instance, upon the people of Sicily Piedmontese +laws, the inspiration of which was usually imported +from France or England. They had the impression +that it would be dangerous to the unity of the country to +keep some of the local laws, or to make new ones to meet +the particular needs of this or that province. In the minds +of these passionate creators of unity, unity was a quite +fragile affair, produced by them <i>ex tempore</i>; they did +not see that it could only be the result of a slow elaboration, +bound to go on for generations, and that the final +success of their enterprise was more likely to be ensured +by an intelligent interpretation of tradition than by the +application of exotic doctrines that did not fit any of the +historical characteristics of the country.</p> + +<p>The same singleness of vision was to prove blinding in +regard to several other points; but it will be enough to +state here that the fact that the men who had sacrificed +themselves to the cause of unity had all been gentlemen, +led those in power to consider the higher classes as exclusively +constituting the nation they had brought into +being. The rest were politically non-existent; and in +the haste to develop the commercial and industrial possibilities +of the country a good deal too much was done +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>to enthrone capital and invite thereby the advent of +Socialism.</p> + +<p>Finally, another cause of trouble—indeed, another consequence +of the same lack of political tradition and education—was +the impossibility of forming proper party +organisations. Who was Left—and who was Right? +Discrimination was impossible. Parties, like all historical +organisms, are called into being and developed according +to, and in consequence of, the political development of +the country. In Italy they had to be produced, planned +and organised all at once, by the mere empirical decisions +of men, who, whatever their ability, or the loftiness of +their ideals, could not avoid the arbitrariness and the +errors to which the best individual men are subject, +limited as their views are by their personal feelings or +ambitions. Therefore, what happened was this: some +followers of Mazzini who had joined the Liberals in the +struggle for liberty, stood out as republicans; some who +had followed Garibaldi and who had for ten years longed +to take Rome from the Pope, became anti-clerical democrats; +the rest were not to be clearly distinguished from +one another because a man who was a staunch monarchist +may have been in the same time anti-Catholic if he was +a Freemason, whilst another might have had strong +democratic tendencies and yet stand for tradition. The +best instance of this may have been Crispi: he belonged +to the Left, and certainly often acted and felt like a man +of the Right.</p> + +<p>Such confusion was to reach its climax when, after 1866 +and 1870, it was understood that the king and the government, +having obtained the Veneto from Austria, had given +up the intention of adding Trento and Trieste to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>kingdom. Then the extreme Left joined irredentism to +its anti-Catholic activity. They went on speaking of the +ethnographic right that such provinces had to claim +themselves as Italian, and they artfully bound their +anti-religious campaign to a programme that sounded +highly idealistic. No wonder that the different governments +that succeeded each other should lose their time +fighting the ghost of financial bankruptcy. One thing only +can be brought against them, and it is that though all +men of great culture they did not understand how unhistorical +were their actions. They should have known +that their conception of State and citizen, their idea of +what is the function of the government, had been taken +ready made from other countries and lazily accepted +without any proper study of its antecedents. Some were +Anglophile, some under their new Germanophilism hid +the most perfect assimilation of French doctrines taken +in their easiest and, therefore, most abstract formulas. +None took liberty for what the word had meant of actual +and positive political conquest to the average Englishman +of the seventeenth century; they did not even take it for +what it had meant of practical improvement to the +Frenchman of the eighteenth century; they took it as +a rhetorical figure with an abstract concept behind it, +as soon as it ceased to mean independence from foreign +rule.</p> + +<p>They termed themselves Liberals, however, and when +they came to be ministers of a Liberal government they +professed sometime a very curious notion of what such +a government should be; Cairoli put it down in three +words, <i>reprimere non prevenire</i>; an excellent motto perhaps, +when the citizens are used to the exercise of their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>duties and rights, but soon proved to be dangerous in a +country where traditions had been trampled upon during +half a century. In less than a decade Italy was the prey +of anarchy, for in 1878, the same Cairoli, had to defend +the king’s life in Naples at the risk of his own, and in +Florence and Pisa bombs were thrown against the crowds +rejoicing over the king’s narrow escape. The Liberals +looked at the way legislation worked in France and in +England, but, like all followers of Illuminism, they took +it for granted that there existed a certain kind of animal +which was the same wherever and whenever you find Man, +and they looked at the application of the system, not at +its origin, not at its philosophical and political antecedents; +in short, they did not see that it was brought +about by the whole history of the countries in which it +flourished, and they believed that it would work wherever +men lived together in nations.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Under such circumstances what was the government for the +political classes? A coach in a land of brigands; for the +most popular elements a coach to be attacked on the roadside; +for the better elements, a coach they had a right to +drive, whip in hand. Every man stood up against the government +either begging or threatening; so that it is no wonder +that the next generation of gentlemen mostly stood aside +and shunned politics, seeing that at best the men who mixed +in it were moved by selfish ambition, or were a vulgar crew +of Arrivists and mischief plotters. Abstention on the one +side was, however, a form of selfishness, as harmful to the +state as Arrivism on the other. Provided they kept clean +hands, the abstentionists did not mind that the national +conscience should be either corrupted or lulled to sleep by +the people whose interest it was that it should slumber. +Obviously their withdrawal from public life had the same +cause as the ambition and the unscrupulous opportunism of +the others. After fifty years of heroic life and feelings, they +wanted to attend to their own business and enjoy life privately. +Public cares and struggles had been the order of the +day for half a century, and public conscience relaxed; with +a sudden eclipse of national consciousness, Italy lost the +pride of autonomy in foreign affairs and ceased to realise in +deeds the part it had to play in the history of the world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>Its foreign policy is the best index of the spiritual conditions +of the period, and according to the historian, Michele +Rosi (who is neither a Fascist nor a Liberal, nor a Socialist, +because he is a man born to put together facts, historical +facts, and live a passionate life among them instead of living +it among men) the line of conduct of Italian foreign ministers +at this stage can be described as the policy of men who distrusted +themselves more then they distrusted others. Rosi +does not say so, but the facts he puts together do say so.</p> + +<p>Of this the best proof was the Triple Alliance. In 1873 +Marco Minghetti went with King Vittorio Emmanuele II to +Berlin and to Vienna to discuss a second alliance with Germany +and more cordial relations with the Austrian court. +The followers of Garibaldi raised an outcry as they saw in +this a sure proof that the King of Italy was giving up Trento +and Trieste, whereas it had never been thought in the past +that Rome or Venice might have been so abandoned. In +Parliament, however, the Left was quite willing to lean on +the shoulder of Germany, and was submitting even to an +alliance with Austria, although some of the members had +dark remembrances of its rule. But at the same time they +flirted with France, who was going more and more to the +Left, and whose anti-clericalism seemed to cheer on their +own anti-Catholicism.</p> + +<p>In 1877 Francesco Crispi, the best statesman of Italy at +the time, one of those men of the Left whose mentality +brought them mostly to think and often to act as if they had +belonged to the Right, made a diplomatic tour to the capitals +of Germany, Austria, France and England. He had one open +aim, and another one not quite so fully acknowledged, which +was to look for support against a possible aggression that +was feared both from Paris and Vienna. The impression he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>received was that Berlin might accept an alliance with Italy +against France, on the understanding that Austria would be +left free to do what she liked in the East. Thirty years +before, Italy, still in the making and far from seeing yet her +way to unity, had attacked single-handed the greatest +empire of Europe in an offensive war; now, out of fear of a +possible attack from France, which Bismarck himself +declared very unlikely, she entered into an alliance from +which she received only orders and prohibitions. When the +Congress of Berlin took place, all that the representative of +Italy could do was of so little avail, that the Germans +declared that the French and the Italians had to settle +the question of Tunis between themselves. This did not +admit of any compensation to Italy for the Austrian +occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and expansion in the +East. The Italian policy at that congress betrayed a total +incapacity to display the policy of a great State in +foreign affairs. The reasons were threefold, the men in +power had a very poor understanding of the forces and +the interests of the country and, in consequence, could not +act according to these; they were holding on to ideologies, +that had served their time and whose high-sounding +rhetoric could only help them to hide the vacuum of their +minds; finally, they had a sense that their home affairs +were getting more and more out of hand and this feeling +may have been the most cramping of all the circumstances +in which they stood.</p> + +<p>Negative as it was, the attitude of the government was +in harmony with that of Parliament. When, in January, +1879, the Senate disapproved of its foreign policy, the +head of the government, who was Depretis, shifted all +responsibility by saying that, as Prime Minister, he had in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>that department followed faithfully the traditions of the +Right, although he belonged to the Left. In February of +the same year, Mussolino strongly advised them to enter +into an alliance with Germany; he knew, said he, that +Bismarck would accept it unwillingly, as he believed the +Italians to be unfaithful, but that he would do so nevertheless, +needing Italy against France. Nothing could be +less heroic, than a Senate which had good grounds to feel +pride in the newly achieved national independence, and +was yet so low spirited that it could accept an alliance +on such grounds.</p> + +<p>The ideal of the Risorgimento had been realised, and +as the new leaders <i>had no new ideals</i> they had nothing +further to realise; they were bodies without souls, with +nothing that might give them a chance to display the +gifts with which nature had so largely endowed them. +Materialists in philosophy they strove to make the +country more and more materialist, fighting religion under +the names of clericalism and obscurantism.</p> + +<p>Obviously what kept the various governments of Italy +from having a dignified foreign policy was that the +country was in a state bordering on anarchy. One cause +of this was lack of experts in all the political classes, +devoid, as the best men were, of personal or traditional +experience to help in the application of their imported +legislation; but the main cause was undoubtedly the +amorphous state of the working classes. If man is to be +called a political animal, the labourers of Italy were not +men fifty years ago. They did not care what happened and +did not think they had anything to say in the matter: they +were politically unconscious. Not that they were stupid: +their art, their songs, their traditions attest the contrary.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span></p> + +<p>Their political unconsciousness, far from making things +easier, rendered a good Liberal government very nearly +impossible; for apathy and indifference in the lower +class, while it may be very well under an absolute monarchy +of the patriarchal type, under a Liberal constitution +is apt to prove a curse. First, the lower middle class kept +drawing men from the people, and these men, with the +natural gift of adaptation the Italian shows to a greater +degree than the slower northern races, rose too quickly +and too quickly became conscious of their plebian force +and of the opportunities offered to them by the +difficulties under which the government was working. +Among these men and among the crowds of half-intellectuals +employed by the State in the innumerable offices +created by the centralising administration, in the national +schools, in the railways, post services and so on, the +members of Parliament, who belonged to the Left, recruited +their votes. How quickly these electors realised +that their chances of getting all the political importance +in their hands rested on the extension of the franchise +need not be emphasised. The dates are eloquent, Rome +became the capital of Italy in 1870, in 1882 the franchise +is extended, and immediately a workman, Maffi, and a +pure Socialist, Andrea Costa, are elected.</p> + +<p>Without attempting a sketch of the development of +Socialism in Italy, it must be said that it certainly did a +great deal of good to the country. It aroused the working +masses from their slumber and bettered their material +conditions, which badly wanted bettering. To stir the +people out of their amorphous state and make them conscious +of their rights was a very wholesome operation. It +would have been better to have made them realise at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>same time that rights never go without duties, and that +to co-operate in public life they had to undertake the one +in order to get the other. But this, however, was more +than could be expected from agitators, who often had, +themselves, a very poor notion of the relation of right +and duties. Their incitement to the people was to make +material well-being, the ultimate end of all effort.</p> + +<p>Vulgar as it was, yet it was the proper aim for a +materialistic age, and it had the advantage of being concrete, +positive, and within range of the people’s rudimentary +political understanding. Therefore it worked. It had +the first quality that an idea must have to move people +to action; it corresponded to the real needs of the workers.</p> + +<p>The nobler side of Socialism, that which had made it +highly idealistic and has made its ultimate end a dreamy +Messianism, did not strike root in Italy. It did not appeal +to the people, and whenever it fascinated some stray poet +or idealist, like Andrea Costa or Mussolini’s father, they +failed to arouse an echo in the minds of the labourers. +This should have been sufficient to show that it did not +suit the Italian mentality. Mankind, the fraternity of +mankind, the lost paradise reconquered by the mutual +love of men, could not mean much to Italian ears. It +sounded abstract, and at best did not show much chance +of being realised by the present generation. The Socialist +leaders had to attract followers with more concrete things, +with plans that could be realised, and to arouse in them a +passion for an actual object. Consequently they harped +on the necessity of getting better wages for less work. +They planned Labour organisations which gradually grew +stronger, and they taught the workers to hate their +employers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p> + +<p>Yet this was not the worst part of the leaders’ activity; +that was the corrupting consciousness they gave the +workers of an unlimited political power without any +corresponding duties. Out of unfairly treated men they +made bullies, most unhappy bullies, the worst kind of +bullies. The torture of Mussolini’s youth was this rapid +decadence of Socialism in Italy, although it had the +advantage over other parties of a stock of general ideas +and a definite programme. It was only the weakness of +other parties which made it look strong until the war and +during the years that followed the peace; for as far back +as 1910 the historic ideas it had brought to Italy had +yielded their crop. Had it not been so, Socialism, between +1918 and 1920, would have worked out in open revolution. +As it was, it had built up a class organisation that was the +first regular Party in modern Italy, and this meant +considerable experience for the whole nation; it had +besides bettered the material conditions of life of the lower +class and awakened them to political consciousness, which +is a contribution to the development of the country as a +modern State that cannot be overrated.</p> + +<p>Liberalism, be it of the Right or of the Left, had had +an Italian form, which had proved its consonance with +the historical position of the country by the efficiency +with which it had realised its ideal. Italy, free from +foreign rule and politically one under the House of Savoy, +was doubtless the creation of Italian Liberalism. But as a +home governing party its inefficiency was obvious; one +may think that its failure was due to its non-national +stock of ideas, which led to the application of foreign legislation +to a country whose needs were not the same as those +of the nations in which this administrative and political +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>Liberalism had come out of a long historical evolution.</p> + +<p>Socialism, on the other hand, was yeast, and as yeast +it was very good for Italy, for the unleavened masses rose +into shape and life under its action; thereby emerging from +their amorphousness they entered into the political world +and brought with them the force and life of numbers. It +brought them also to the level of the European proletariat +and introduced the Party discipline and organisation that +the other Italian parties had not needed, as their singleness +of aim and the loftiness of their ideals had been +sufficient to keep their high-minded members in unity. +Yet it proved a curse, as its leaders were unable to realise +that the wretched means they had to resort to, in order to +arouse men into action, were due to the fact that the higher +side of Socialism did not fit the mentality of the people.</p> + +<p>Another party must be now considered, and that commands +a great deal of respect from any foreigner that may +have watched with loving eyes the life of Italy: +Nationalism. Corradini and Federzoni may be looked +upon as its leaders, and their followers were a mere +handful of men. They had a clear notion of what they +wanted, and to a certain extent they may be considered +as the rightful heirs of the Risorgimento. Again they +were all gentlemen, gentlemen being taken as the +English equivalent of <i>vir</i>, implying the sterling quality +of the individual and not at all his social position or his +æsthetic refinement, which may be merely the consequence +of wealth. Small minorities are always to be found at the +origin of any great political movement as it is the conviction +of the few which carries away the multitude of +men. But then the crucial point is that their convictions +must have magnetic attraction for the general public. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>And the Nationalists had not this. Their ideas were too +high and, at the same time, they were obsolete, besides +being no more Italian than those of Liberalism or Socialism.</p> + +<p>The Nationalists’ idea of a nation was as materialist as +their aims were idealist.⁠<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Now this would be sufficient to +condemn to sterility the best wills in the world. To state +this plainly, the easiest way is to take man as a simile for +nation. There are two ways of looking at a man: he is +<i>one out of many</i>, or he is <i>the one central reality</i>. As one out +of many he knocks in every sense against the reality of the +many, and is therefore identified by his very limitations. +Such a conception of the man is evidently negative. He +is appreciated not so much by what he actually does, but +by what he has done, or possesses; not so much by what +he is, but by the rank he occupies, and which may often +be determined independently of his <span class="allsmcap">ACTUAL</span> value. But +as the one central reality a man cannot come into competition +with other objects of appreciation; he can no +longer be gauged from outside. Now, obviously, from the +world of objective and natural reality, we are shifting to +the subjective and spiritual world. We have in front of +us no longer an individual belonging to the world of things—we +have a person. Common wisdom has for centuries +professed that to understand a person’s motives it is +necessary to put oneself in that person’s position; and +daily experience shows that we understand the people we +love better, because we can make ourselves one with them +and judge them from their own point of view. To appreciate +a personality this method is indispensable; for it is +not in the deeds of his past that a man must be judged—he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>may have been a hero in the last war and be a coward +in his present family life—they are now extrinsic to him, +unless he goes on living them and making them for ever his +spiritual experience. He must be judged by what he is doing +actually. Neither must one measure him by his property, +but by what he is still able to produce; nor by the regard +or contempt of the people who surround him, which is +based on what he has done; nor on what his people were, +but by what he actually is. None of these conditions of +appreciation is fulfilled as long as we look at a man from +outside and weigh his manly worth by comparing his +achievement, or his property, to that of other people. +Past deeds should not raise him one whit in our appreciation +unless he continues them with perfect conscience of +their value, for their actual and his personal value depend +exclusively of the conscience he has of such value and of +his aptitude to keep it actual.</p> + +<p>Of this fact Corradini and his friends had excellent +examples in Italy. Some of the landlords, who owned +relatively small estates and quite insufficient capital, +managed to bring their land to the highest rate of productiveness, +so that the actual production was superior +to that of estates of a much bigger acreage. The owners of +the <i>latifondi</i>, on the other hand, were not all sufficiently +rich to have their lands ploughed, and those who were +did not always do so, although some Roman princes did +cultivate thoroughly, very often as much from patriotism +as from the wish to increase their incomes. Conspicuous +among them were some leading Nationalists. They +could see from this that the importance of a man as a +landlord was not altogether dependent on the area of his +estate and on his capital, and that it varied according to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>the consciousness he had of what the value of his estate +should be and the capacity he had for realising it. But +they did not think of the nation as of a man whose value, +practically as well as spiritually, depends not so much on +the capacity he has for doing things, as on his being +conscious of such capacity. Therefore, they looked at +Italy measuring it by the poor figure it cut in foreign +policy, by its colonies, by its financial weakness, comparing +it always in their minds with other countries; in a word, +judging it from outside as if it had belonged to the field +of natural science instead of belonging to the world of +history, which is after all the world of Mind.</p> + +<p>Thank God, however, “<i>le coeur a des raisons que la +raison ne connaît pas</i>,” and some of these men, Corradini +above all, were men with great hearts and deep souls. Out +of faith and love of their country they realised what their +conception of political reality would have kept them from +seeing, namely that the root of all the evil was that the +people of Italy had almost allowed the stifling of their +souls. Religion in some provinces had been, so to speak, +extirpated by the anti-Catholic democrats, republicans +and radicals; both religion and patriotism had been +lulled to sleep by the Socialists. The only political cell +still living and strong was the family. The Nationalists +were beset by another cause of sterility, the men these +leaders recruited ... did they share their religious and +truly patriotic motives? All did not, and that was the +misery of it. Yet Corradini and some others were men of +faith, just as much as Cavour and Mazzini had been; they +could get men to join them in holding aloft a torch whose +flame flickered in the cold twilight of Garibaldi’s Italy. +They kept the sacred fire of Rome burning, and openly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>preached self-sacrifice, whilst great artists and sceptic +scholars invited the youth of the upper class to enjoy +life and shut themselves up in selfish existence.</p> + +<p>The Nationalists were men of faith, and as everything +is possible to him that believeth, they kept working for +their cause a certain number of followers who had joined +them in the hope that better openings would be obtained +for the export of Italian products and for Italian emigrants +if a strong Nationalist foreign policy could be substituted +for the existing weak one. For the Nationalists the nation +was a transcendent reality, objectively considered as to +the individual. Such conception is not peculiar to Italy +by any means; yet it was modified in its Italianisation, but +always in a way that made it more and more a policy for +the gentry. A good deal of culture (I don’t mean philosophy, +but a true sense of history and a sound judgment) +was at the basis of it, and this did not tend to make it a +popular movement. To sacrifice oneself to something +transcendent, to an historical construction, is not for the +mob: not even for the lower middle classes, absorbed as +they are by the problems of daily life.</p> + +<p>There we touch what really distinguishes the Fascists +from the Nationalists, for whom the State belongs to +natural reality, is transcendent in its relation to the +individual, and negatively conceived in its relation to +other states, where it appears one amongst many. It is +a great engine that needs the co-operation of all the +citizens to make it work, but it <i>does</i> exist independently +of the citizens. Philosophically this conception belongs +to the eighteenth century. For the Fascists, the State is +not transcendent in its relation to the citizens: it is +immanent; it is their own spiritual and economical life +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>in its political summing up. In its relation to other states +it is not negatively conceived as one amongst many; for +its citizens, it is their national self, whilst the other +nations are constitutive of their national non-self. The +positiveness of the State for its citizens implies therefore, +for them, the negativeness of the other states.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Such a +conception sounds merely theoretical, and yet it was not +born in words. Its painful birth was the outcome of +Mussolini’s experience as a Socialist and a party leader. +Words have never been given to this newest of all the +conceptions that Italy is contributing to the world of +politics except in an answer he gave to the judges who, in +1911, were condemning him at Forli. Besides this very curt +answer, he never expressed it except in deeds, so that the +form under which it is given here is contributed by the +author. The rest of the doctrine that can be inferred from +his four years’ speeches, legislation and administration, +can be traced in the whole of the philosophical works produced +by Italian idealism; but this, although perfectly +consonant above all with Gentile’s theories, was certainly +one of Mussolini’s most original ideas.</p> + +<p>The task of the government is to raise the level and +increase the value of the citizens, attending not to the +organisation of every branch of life manifestation, but to +the regulation or rather systematisation of such organisation +in order to have always the most intimate fusion of +state and citizens. The empirical self requires that the +peasant should plough his field, sow the seed and reap +the harvest. All this he is bound to do to satisfy his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>material needs and the work thus considered is certainly +not ennobling, since man works as the slave of hunger. +Fascism says to the peasant: “Thou shalt no longer +plough, sow, reap for thyself, that is to say <i>exclusively for +thy material self, but for the State, which is that same +empirical self plus its transcendental complement</i>.” Hence +ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the work of +man, slave of his material needs, but of man transcending +them, <i>without disregarding them</i>, however, and lifting +thereby his daily occupation to the dignity of moral +realisation of his own economic value.</p> + +<p>The only precedent that this application of Fascism +seems to have had is the Christian sanctification of work, +which is undoubtedly one of the noblest gifts bestowed +by our religion upon mankind. The study of Fascism as +a doctrine will offer many such coincidences.</p> + +<p>The State must be universally present as a moral +factor in every branch of its citizens’ activity. It is in +fact the all-pervading consciousness that man must have of +his citizenship which expresses itself as the government. +Obviously extension of territory should be immaterial +if the people of a country could actually be lifted to this +high state of political realisation.</p> + +<p>But even at the stage reached by Fascism it is easy to +see how it affects the policy of foreign states towards +Italy. Bring the people to such a degree of political +consciousness that every activity may be so directed that +it ensures at the same time personal and national increase +of value, then you can very nearly cease to trouble about +foreign policy, which must be the projection of the home +policy, that is to be the supreme affair of a government +intent on the valorisation of its country.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ITS EFFECTS + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In March, 1914, the cabinet of Giolitti retired owing to +some differences with the Radicals. The moment was full +of difficulties and the new ministry was likely to have to +deal with strikes and riots at home and complications out +of Italy. Sonnino, leader of the Opposition and one of the +best men that the Right could boast of, refused to form +a new cabinet and managed to have the office entrusted +to Salandra. The German Emperor, passing through +Venice on his way to Corfou, had a long talk with the king +and the Marquis of San Giuliano, the fact being considered +a new proof of Italo-German friendship apparently even +by the government, whose endeavours were all directed +to secure a majority in both Houses and to avert the storm +that was threatening at home.</p> + +<p>The railways were on the verge of a general strike, the +state officials were demanding better wages and tried to +enforce their requests by forming a trade union; workmen +and peasants made riots in various provinces, +especially in the Romagne and Marche, where in June the +Red Week gave the spectacle almost of a revolution. +There however the Socialists and Republicans made such +a poor show that it is likely to have done a good deal towards +shaking Mussolini’s faith in popular revolution. +Salandra and his ministers were so beset that they let +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>foreign affairs go unheeded or at least treated them as a +matter of minor urgency. It must have been a great shock +to them to realise the imminence of war.</p> + +<p>When the war broke out involving all the great European +Powers the public generally believed Italy to be +bound to back the Triple Alliance. Immediately the +Socialists and the extreme Left stirred up a campaign on +the ground that the Italian people were pacifists and +supporters of international Socialism. It is not easy to +say whether, even had it been pledged to do so, the +government would have been able to obtain the support +of the nation to enter war immediately. Morally the people +were not ready to accept a war without attack or without +provocation from somebody.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> On the first of August +Italy declared neutrality and on that day the <i>Giornale d’Italia</i> +clearly stated that such neutrality was not like that +of Holland or Switzerland, and above all should not be +considered as definitive.</p> + +<p>The tenor of the press showed on which side an +eventual intervention of Italy would take place. Everybody +was either neutralist or interventionist, but nobody +was in favour of an intervention on the side of the Triple +Alliance. The most Germanophile never went farther +than neutralism; all that they hoped and prayed for was +the non-intervention of Italy.</p> + +<p>The argument of the neutralist papers was based on a +statement of the economic and individual sacrifices that +war would involve, and a plea that Italy could not yet be +fit to enter such a conflict. Anti-idealists or sceptics (as +many of the sons of the heroes of the Risorgimento were) +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>they all agreed to regard life as the supreme value and +material well-being as its natural frame. Of war they +only saw the destructive side. They were certainly logical. +A conception of life so thoroughly materialist could not +permit of a higher view of war; for war certainly does +destroy life and if it can and does promote an improvement +in the material conditions of life it is only as a +remote consequence of the class changes, and the industrial +and commercial stimulus carried in its trail. The immediate +consequences are certainly unsettling and paralysing +to business.</p> + +<p>On the other hand the interventionists had as the +basis of their argument a set of platitudes the abstract +ideology of which was nearly as objectionable as the +materialism of their opponents. France, Belgium and +England were identified with right and civilisation, +Germany and Austria with wrong and barbarity. Therefore +Italy should have the honour of being among the +righteous avengers of liberty and civilisation against their +traditional foe, barbarity. This opposition of two abstractions +to the materialism of their opponents betrayed +the ideologic heirloom of the eighteenth century, so dear +to the self-admiring minds of the educated mob. For +there is such a thing as an educated mob and it is sure to +be on the side that offers a high sounding rhetoric, a certain +number of stock phrases and a fascinating ideology. It is +so much easier to accept ready-made ideas than to work +them out from actual reality.</p> + +<p>It was not likely, however, that such claptrap should +move the people to war. Fortunately, there was another +side to the question and that was the chance of getting +Trento and Trieste, in whose intellectual life the old +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>spirit of the Risorgimento had kept two strongholds. All +that was Liberal and traditional in the Italy of the nineteenth +century rose to the bait. The highest form of +Italian Liberalism and its aftermath Nationalism, unfurled +their standard with the old zest and their followers +displayed their immortal eagerness to make this last +addition to their forerunners’ building of Italy. Not only +were they splendid in the propaganda days, but they were +the first to enlist, and both young Nationalists and old +Liberals made it a point that “no gentleman should stay +at home.” Naturally the echo they aroused was far from +being general. If all the Liberals and the Nationalists +were gentlemen not all the so-called gentlemen belonged +to these parties; there was as much political indifference +among the higher classes as among the lower. But it is +only fair to say that the war which gave rise to the +national and political consciousness whose first expression +is Fascism was mainly due to the pressure and the enthusiastic +campaign of Italian Liberalism and its offspring +Nationalism.</p> + +<p>This much being said in praise of the Nationalists, it +may be remarked from the Italian point of view that the +misrepresentation of the time and of the character of the +world conflagration could not have been carried much +farther. It was indeed the last flare of their imported +notions of political reality. For nearly five centuries +intellectual tradition had bestowed upon Italians a mentality +which is historical nearly beyond understanding for +foreigners. It will be traced back in another chapter from +Dante’s <i>De Monarchia</i>, but it may be here taken from its +first practical assertion. Machiavelli, at the end of the +fifteenth century, acting as Chancellor and Secretary of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>Florence, was honoured with the unlimited trust of the +<i>Gonfaloniere a vita</i> and in every respect proved himself +worthy of such high consideration. He was exceedingly +grateful to the man who entrusted him with missions, the +official charge of which could not have been legally +bestowed upon him. Yet, whatever his regard for the +high-mindedness of his principal, from a close study and +strict observation of political facts he came to the conclusion +that nothing could prevent the Gonfaloniere’s +policy from failure.</p> + +<p>Dino was elected <i>Gonfaloniere a vita</i> when the son of +Lorenso il Magnifico had to leave Florence in a hurry after +having failed to avert the transit of Charles the VIII and +his troops through Florence. Cosimo and Lorenzo dei +Medici had only ruled for about half a century but the +changes which had taken place during that time in +Tuscany and in the whole of Italy were so great that +history shows whole centuries which have not displayed +half of the difference made, for bad or good, by the civilisation +of the time. History was indeed at a turning of the +road so that when Dino came in power there was as much +difference between the political world anterior to the +Medicean rule and his own as there is between the sweet +and gentle art of the Beato Angelico, and that of Signorelli +who introduced realism in his own vigorous art. Good +Dino, however, having been chosen Gonfaloniere to bring +Florence back to its former virtuous ways, looked to the +old Republican days for a model of government, and he +failed to give his fellow citizens the political advantage +that would have met their needs just as Signorelli would +have shown himself a failure if he had painted exactly +as the Beato had done. Machiavelli was no optimist, but +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>whatever the weakness of his conception of history due +to the philosophical notions of his time, he did not give +himself up entirely to abusing the wickedness of the people. +Sure enough, they were wicked—far more so than they +had been before the Medicean had corrupted them—yet +they were above all different and had, therefore, to be +governed according to different ideas.</p> + +<p>It is no wonder, therefore, that the Florentine Secretary +should have spent so many hours of his enforced leisure +after the realisation of the event, the inevitability of which +had so long haunted him, to warn his contemporaries and +the posterity of the necessity of governing not according +to a mummified ideal, but in harmony with one’s own +time. <i>Bisogna riscontrarsi coi propri tempi</i> and to do so +he recommends the statesman again and again to get +direct information of that which he calls <i>la verità effettuale +delle cose</i>, that is effective or actual truth in matter of +politics. It is both the experimental method of Galileo and +Vico’s historical understanding of society that are alluded +to in this constantly recurrent admonition of the man +whose shrewdness was to blind posterity for several +centuries and throw the power and depth of his political +genius in the dark.</p> + +<p>In 1915 such an excellent jurisconsult as Prof. Salandra +and such a first-rate diplomat as Sonnino seemed to +realise but little that such a principle existed. At best +they harped on Trento and Trieste, when they did not +display their rhetoric on the conflict between civilisation +and barbarity. Still this territorial conquest, whatever its +importance as a traditional ideal to realise, was presented +above all as a rectification of the northern frontiers +strictly necessary for the safety of the nation and ethnologically +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>justified. Nobody ever seemed to realise that +this aim should not have been the first objective to a nation +which lacked that which is the very essence of the national +entity, that which entitles a collectivity to have ethnological +frontiers, in short a national conscience and a +national will.</p> + +<p>Nobody seemed to realise it, but there was one man who +did, and there we have the second flare of genius to be +credited to Mussolini. He had become gradually conscious +through constant contact with the working class, and the +middle class as well, that they would never be fit for +political life unless they acquired what they lacked through +sacrifice. The recent Red Week had shown him that they +would not fight, that they might set traps for other +people’s lives, but they would not face either blows or +death for anything; and when the war came he saw that +there Italy had the one chance it could have to acquire +what the genial people who called themselves its citizens +lacked to lift themselves into the higher sphere where +human beings are prepared to live and to die for their +political ideas.</p> + +<p>It is, in fact, this national conscience, this spiritual and, +therefore, unlimited gift that the war has bestowed upon +Italy, and it is only now that Carducci, the most typically +civic of all Italian poets, could write with perfect truth:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Ei dipinga il trionfo dell ’Italia</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Assorta novella tra le genti.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Nevertheless it is not Fascist Italy, it is not the real friends +of Italy, who will ever find fault with the ideas that +brought Italy to join the Allies and face the tragic ordeal +of war. For it was the war, the mystery of death faced by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>millions of her sons, which has made Italy a moral value, +and a first-rate historical factor in the present political +world. The select minority that was the brain and soul +of the Risorgimento has disappeared; national consciousness +now fills the individual consciences of the +majority, and this extension of the national conscience +had nothing to do with the extended vote; it is a consequence +of the war. Personality, national personality +means actual unity of conscience and will just as much as +individual personality. Such personality has effectively +been born in Italy out of the ordeal that meant direct or +indirect sacrifice from every man and woman, for nobody +would doubt the reality of the object for which +his sacrifice was made. Italy and her star were, up to +1915, a good theme for popular or academic literature, +but when it had required blood and tears from every +home it became that which could easily be transformed +into the most awful and objective reality. Hence the +religiousness of their new realisation of Italy.</p> + +<p>It loomed indeed awful, like an obscure divinity, when it +called men who did not quite know why they had to fight +to the supreme sacrifice. One has to keep in mind how +little civilisation and barbarity, pompous words, meant +to the Italian lower class, and how little Sicilians or Neapolitans +cared for Trento and Trieste. After Caporetto it +was a different matter. The traditional foe was on their +land, and by then they had realised what war meant. +Therefore, one may say that their national soul was tempered +between Caporetto and the Armistice, and that only +then they became an ethical value, a spiritual entity or +rather personality fit to play a part in the constructive +history of the world. The point cannot be over-stated.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>It is only through the war that the spiritual reality of +the country was enabled to strike roots in the souls of the +labourers and middle class men, ceasing thereby to be the +monopoly of a small intellectual and aristocratic minority.</p> + +<p>The subjects of the King of Italy all became Italian +citizens, and the people was finally one in its full independence; +it was, indeed, the last act of the Risorgimento.</p> + +<p>Few foreigners, no foreigner so to speak, had in 1915 +a fair idea of what was the state of mind of the Italians +and still less of what could be their mentality. It will not +be too daring to say that in this ignorance lay the cause +of all the diplomatic difficulties and of the fallacious +appreciations of what that country could give, or has +actually given, with the consequent mutual vexations that +were to strain the relations between the Allies and Italy.</p> + +<p>The author had already, in 1915, spent two years in +Italy and studied a good deal; yet youth did not allow at +the time more than an intuition of the fact—the conviction +of which was to be acquired by ten years of experience, +observation and study. The Allies expected too much of a +generation whose fathers had fought the Wars of Independence +with sheer heroism and with material means that +England or France would have considered hardly fit for a +colonial campaign. On the other hand, they overlooked +the possibilities of a people who had in front of itself the +whole of its national future, an historical mentality which +was likely to keep it from the sterilising conception of +positivism, abstract idealism or materialism, once it +should have reached a clear sense of its own secular +reality, a Lacedemonian frugality, and finally intellectual +forces not inferior to those of the Kantian and Hegelian +Germany. The Italians for their part had to overcome a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>radical scepticism. They had a very poor opinion of what +military achievement they could get out of their lower +class, their traditional financial deficiency made them +fear economic destruction almost more than the life +sacrifice of so many men. Munitions were a nightmare, +renewal of their coal and wheat stocks a puzzling problem. +They had to trust blindly to the Allies. In fact it is a +wonder that they should have overcome the sense of +despondency that might have paralysed them altogether.</p> + +<p>Thus it happened that the Italians did actually achieve +far more than they expected, far surpassing their own +opinion of their military efficiency; whilst doing far less +than the Allies had expected. Hence no end of misunderstandings. +They thought that they had surprised us by +an unsuspected revelation of force and efficiency and they +ascribed our rather disappointed attitude to envy and fear +of their new power. Before the war they thought too +little of themselves, because, as we have said, they were +still nationally unconscious, while the British and French +governments overrated the forces that they might contribute +without acknowledging their ambitions to develop +the latent forces of which they were conscious. Such +misunderstanding was to breed all the difficulties that we +knew of at the end of the war. The Italians had been +victorious in war, they had triumphed over their enemies, +and above all over themselves, since they had asserted +their reality as an actual political value. But they were +defeated in peace, or at least were on the very point of +being defeated and destroyed by peace.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The several Treaties of peace, the conferences of the +Allies, were a long sequence of disappointments to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>people of Italy. The incomprehension of the real state +of things in that country reached such a degree that had +Socialism in Italy been endowed with a more violent +vitality Bolshevism would have flourished. The propaganda +of the Socialist party increased daily on ground most +favourably prepared by the general discontent and received +moreover the collaboration of the so-called <i>Popolari</i>—a +kind of Social Catholic party that in theory was to +take the place of the clericals. Whether their leader, Don +Sturzo, a man of remarkable power, realised the sacrilegiousness +of using Catholic priests to pervert the minds of +the peasants or not, the Popolari brought their violences +to such a pitch in some provinces that they not only +matched, they surpassed the Reds.⁠<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Naturally, these +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>parties and the men who were not supposed to belong to +them, but were flattering them in case of an eventual +revolution, were wont to represent the war and the sacrifices +that had been made by the country as the cause of all +the social and economic difficulties. To them, the only +consequence of the war was the destruction of what had +been laboriously done between 1870 and 1915.</p> + +<p>It was at this juncture that some people banded together +their aspirations, which seemed in the main to be the +realisation in the Adriatic of all the value of what they +called “their mutilated victory.” They had mostly been +in the trenches, and they clustered round Gabriele +d’Annunzio who led them to occupy Fiume, which was +still under the control of the Allies. The Allies left the +whole affair to Italy and had the Italian government, or +a strong party, backed d’Annunzio and his friends, the +course of events would have been different. The country +wanted Fiume, certainly, but with what will did they +want it? With a will that was national at last, because +it was not moved exclusively by Irredentism, and did not +identify itself with the will of the upper classes, but was a +feeling with the whole people. They had deserved it; they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>were conscious of a right acquired through the common +trial of the whole nation. It was, however, more a velleity +than a will. The new spiritual life was quivering, it could +express itself in a puerile gesture of the hand towards the +object of its passion, but it could not yet express itself +in action. Will or velleity—it was certainly the first +manifestation of a really national life striving against the +paralysing scaffolding of its political organisation. The +professional politicians had been trained when politics were +merely a question of technical detail, when to be a Deputy +meant merely a job as a bargainer, to get the votes of the +people for a party on the understanding that the party +would satisfy the arbitrary and personal requirements of +its electors, with the possibility of coming to power any +day in one of the incredible combinations that came to life +almost daily and made the Chamber a nursery of ministers.</p> + +<p>On the 28th of September, 1919, the government appointed +General Badoglio Extraordinary Commissioner +of the Venezia Guilia and accepted a discussion on the +matter in the Chamber. Neither the men in power nor the +opposition felt it possible to accept the suggestions of the +Press, of various associations, and even of their friends who +were urging the necessity of Fiume’s annexation. The +Ministry gave in its resignation after dissolving the House +and the elections returned 157 Socialists, among whom +were moderate men like Turati and Treves and many new +men whose programmes were openly revolutionary, and +over a hundred <i>Popolari</i>. These parties had a good deal in +common. Their propaganda had been nearly perfect and +had appealed to the people by that definiteness and +practicalness of purpose which is the main string to pull +in order to move Italians to action. They were not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>dreamers and even in their worst or best ideals they were +for definiteness of means and purpose. There is in the +Italian mind such a strong tendency to take a realistic +view of things that to this characteristic the best and the +worst of their history might be traced for twenty centuries.</p> + +<p>The Nationalists had been returned in very small +number, but were mostly young, with considerable intellectual +culture, fit and ready to assume responsibilities. +They had all done active service in the war and were +sorry to see its meagre result. They required an audacious +and strong policy without being able, however, to see +clearly how this was to be realised. Liberals held a good +many seats but they were so split up that they should +rather be considered as a set of groups than as a party; +they even called themselves different names and had no +common programme.</p> + +<p>After these elections one had the impression of watching +the systematic extinction of the flickering flame that had +signalised the coming to light of the new national conscience. +One must have spent those years in Italy, have +actually lived the life of the Italians, felt all their actual experiences +and at the same time have had a good historical and +intellectual grounding in all that concerns the country, to +understand fully the tragedy of it. They seemed to precipitate +themselves from the soaring heights of national +conscience to the lowest and vilest egotism. Material +well-being was again the order of the day and not yours +or theirs or the children’s, but <i>mine</i>. Beyond that nothing. +Reality was again atomistic and the atoms constitutive +of it were absolutely irrelatives. Nobody seemed to +reflect; all were acting and behaving like children. +Truly it is the subjectiveness of the period that must be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>taken as its characteristic. They seemed to move each +in his own world. Even financially they seemed to have +reached an unbridled licence. The constant principles +that regulate economic relations which form the basis of +society were disregarded. Objective reality was ignored +just as it is ignored by children and to a certain degree +by artists. They had the economic deficit constantly on +their lips—but never had such spendthrift way of living +been displayed in their country—and they seemed to +overlook the moral deficit betrayed by such an atomistic +subjectiveness.</p> + +<p>Consider the factories. It is evidently a high rate of +production that will ensure the interests of both labour +and capital. Well, the workmen, or women, set themselves +to get higher wages as they have done in most countries, +but in the north and centre of Italy they did it with such +a childish and, therefore, savage and lawless will that the +works had to be shut in many instances and were not +reopened until the advent of Fascism. So that it can be +said that by not taking into consideration the actual +production as a whole, and the owner’s interest, they +reduced their legitimate desire for a better life to the destructive +whims of children and ruined their own interest.</p> + +<p>The schools reflected the same destructive state of mind. +That which makes the school is surely not the building; +the children are not pupils if they do not learn, and neither +is the master a teacher except inasmuch as he does actually +teach. Discipline having slackened to such a degree that +it bordered on anarchy the pupils had one fixed idea +to do no work, and a great many of the teachers—not all +indeed, for the teaching body has always counted in +Italy a number of first-rate men—had the same purpose. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>Teaching and learning were reduced to a ghostly shadow +by the reduction of schools to a subjective purpose by +both parties. The professors saw in their function the title +it gave them to their stipend and the pupils attended +school just for the degree or the promotion to which such +attendance entitled them.</p> + +<p>Such a false vision of life is certainly not natural to the +Italian people, and it had taken a great deal of trouble +to introduce it in a country the mentality of which is above +all realistic. It is natural to think that the Socialist and +Popolari leaders were guilty of the most criminal falsehoods.</p> + +<p>On the 15th of June, 1920, when Giolitti was called +upon to form a new ministry, the government of Nitti had +wrought such havoc in the few months he had been in +power that the old statesman was hailed <i>Salvatore della +Patria</i> on his coming to power by the very people who had +called him a traitor five years before. Yet the new government +found that the best thing to do was to let things +go on as they were, with the result that factories were +taken possession of by workmen, and a strong reaction +took shape under the wings of the new-born Fascism, +which came out with the simple programme of restoring +order <i>even against the state</i> if it was necessary.</p> + +<p>Public opinion at the end of the year gave a clear proof +of the depressing influence the government had had on +the national conscience allowing Giolitti, who had truly +never been a Nationalist, to compel d’Annunzio and his +men to evacuate Fiume without any protest against the +bombardment inflicted upon them. When, in the next +spring, the elections took place, all the old parties were +there again with the addition of Fascism. The men of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>new party were mostly new to politics altogether, whilst +some came from all the old parties (including the Socialist) +and they had all of them taken an active part in the war. +In the districts they had made national blocks with +Nationalists and Liberals and the few seats they obtained +were not lost by the <i>Popolari</i> or Socialists, who were returned +in the same proportion as they had been in the +last House.</p> + +<p>The first characteristic of the Fascists was that they +seemed to have the same programme as the Nationalists, +whilst they were displaying the power of mass organisation +that had been till then the privilege of Socialists and +<i>Popolari</i>. (This characteristic holds good up to now.) +They wanted to realise the political programme of the +best men of Italy by lifting the working class up to it. +As to their aim it was then exclusively the political and +moral realisation of the practical and spiritual value they +ascribed to the war victory. They had nothing like an +abstract programme. When realisation is not one with +conception—and such has been the case for the last two +centuries—the political systems stated on paper appear +all harmony, and their consequences all for the best; but +the trouble begins as soon as their application is sought.</p> + +<p>Fascism has no ideologies but a cogent system of ideas +able to give what ideologies will never give, promptitude +and coherence of action. These ideas serve as a criterion +of action rather than a theory. If it draws the attention of +foreigners as a beacon light it is because it does show a way +out of the abstraction that in a certain sense seems to have +perverted our modern vision of social and economic +reality. The method it enforces of looking invariably at +both the terms of any one relation is practical, as only can +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>be a method the axle of which is a highly philosophical +conception. For the divorce between thought and action +pronounced by the philosophy of the sixteenth, seventeenth, +and eighteenth centuries might induce us to believe +that speculative thoughts had nothing to do with everyday +life, whereas the simplest and humblest action or relation +to be productive has to be the direct and immediate expression +of a thought, scientific or speculative. The peasant +who lifts his axe over his head before striking it into +the wood is not making a choreographic flourish with his +tool; its weight is augmented by the height to which he +lifts it and the combination of the force of gravitation with +his own sends his blade to the core of the wood. He certainly +does not think of the force of gravitation, but he acts +upon it. In the first contract, tacit though it may have +been, the man who lacked hands to plough his fields and +the men who had no field to plough, came into a relation +that was the typical relation of the one and the many +which has stood as the fundamental problem of ethics and +politics in the philosophy of all ages. When synthesis rules +theory and a synthetic view of reality rules practice then +the relation is kept in consideration as the living bond of +the two parties, and the greater product of the harvest is +the common aim. But when analytic methods, either empirical +or rational, prevail in philosophy, practical life is infected +with a ferocious individualism, the necessary +consequence of which is the unjust attribution of the +harvest to one of the two terms, to the ruin of the relation +which has to be bilateral if it is to be at all.</p> + +<p>This concrete way of looking upon every economic and +social problem does not indeed present itself as a miraculous +way of removing the class struggles, which are, after +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>all, one of the main forces at play in the civilising process +of mankind. It is merely the way of looking at it that +befits the intellectual level reached by man through the +efforts of genius and through the blood and tears of the +many by which social and economic progress is achieved.</p> + +<p>After all that has been said it is surely unnecessary to +point out the absurdity of considering Fascism as a reactionary +tendency. It goes indeed steadily forward and +its leader would not have the historical mind he has, if +it meant to reject the labourers’ claim to preserve the +recognition of their interests, which is the one noble +conquest of socialism. The “reaction” was never against +the working classes’ rights; it was against all rights that +did not spring from duties. It was against exclusive +power—tyrannical as all exclusive powers are bound to +be—that it reacted with the full consent of the population, +as sick of being bossed by a mob minority as the mob had +been to be bossed by the gentry fifty years before. Truly +it would be a strange illusion of the upper classes if they +were to believe that Fascism had come to restore “the +good old times”; for that which it has come to restore +or rather to establish is the really Christian equality of +men. Christian because it intends rights to be consonant +with spiritual value and actual recognition of duties.</p> + +<p>The revolutions of the past were always justified by +the necessity of enforcing the claims of a single class. +Fascism in its synthetic view of life strives to enforce +the rightful claims of all classes, and considers them +rightful as far as they present rights and duties on the +same plane. If it looks to the past it is to understand the +present, but its knowledge and understanding of history +do not allow it to believe that history proceeds backwards.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span></p> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Part_II"> + <span class="smcap">Part II</span> + <br> + PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + </h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p> +<div class="chapter"> + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I_1"> + CHAPTER I + <br> + INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Fascism is the concrete way of considering any organisation +or relation in the light of the aim for which it was +created. Such a method sweeps away a good deal of +claptrap rhetoric and a great many prejudices. What +matters is the actual working of an organisation towards +its aim, and not at all the exclusive interest of one of the +two contracting parties. Obviously this is the practical +application of one of the most famous propositions of the +philosophy of Mind. It is just as obvious that after a +first period of political system exclusively for gentlemen +and by gentlemen, and a second period of a political +system exclusively drawn for the benefit of the lower class, +it was natural that any sane party should have tried a +synthetic policy, above all in a country where the mentality +is essentially realist.</p> + +<p>The motto of Fascism is order and hierarchy. This +is the necessary consequence of its taking into consideration +always the aim and its actual realisation. If efficiency +is to be ensured to any organisation from the family upward +it is evident that every member of it must play his +part in the way which is most likely to ensure efficiency. +Yet this notion of discipline is a trifle more modern than +it sounds, at least in Italy. Nothing can better illustrate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>it than the example of a football Captain and his men. +The boy who acts as Captain, let us say John Smith, has +no authority over his fellows, except when, ceasing to be +John Smith, he is Captain of the team, and while they are +actually playing, practising or arranging a game. His +authority is not personal, it is actual to the sport interests +of the team, or the school they represent, so that it is not +demeaning to any of his team to accept the dictates of his +authority. Indeed the boys’ commonsense is strong +enough, in England at least, to make them realise an idea +which they would comprehend with great difficulty in its +speculative form. To them it is obvious that their Captain’s +authority is as absolute as it is actual and impersonal. +He is Captain as long as he is an actual value, as long as +he is a factor of efficiency to the general play of his side. +His authority does not diminish one whit of the players’ +liberty, because the will of every single player is that his +side should win, and such identity is that which makes +the actual reality both of the team as an individual, or +rather as a person, in the world of sport and of the single +players as members of that team. The Captain is entrusted +with the co-ordination of a number of wills, and their +welding into one in his own person, so that each boy freely +wants what all want. Divergencies are merely negative—as +is constantly shown by the negative scoring of sides +in which first-rate men play without this unification of +their single wills.</p> + +<p>Thus football comes to illustrate perfectly the most +difficult of all the Gentilian notions instinctively acted +upon by people who will never be able to read one line +of Gentile’s works, the notion of liberty taken as actual +identification of each single will which is liberty with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>common will which is law. Again the boys’ commonsense +would find it as ridiculous to argue over their Captain’s +orders when playing, as to go on considering him as their +superior when the game is over, or when they have detected +among themselves a better Captain. Thereby they +teach the world a deep truth, that is to say that no value +can be considered as static, and that its realisation being +dynamic and actual it cannot be achieved once for all, but +is a continuous process of developing one’s own efficiency.</p> + +<p>Hence the notion of discipline and liberty acted upon +by boys playing football results in a conception of hierarchy +which is also shared by Fascism, and is pregnant +with so much social and political reformation that one +cannot insist too much upon it. Nor can one abstract it +from Gentile’s system, of which it is theoretically and +practically the centre. In their organisation the boys +certainly do not consider the team’s hierarchy as being +definitely settled any more than Fascists would consider +any one political constitution or method of governing as +final, that is to say as perfect. To their young minds, full +of freshness and elasticity, it would sound absurd not to +be able to alter their arrangements and to modify their +play in the best interests of the team. If a boy slackens in +his practice his unfitness will soon betray the fact and his +contribution to the positive scoring of the team will be +thereby diminished. But with this new view of hierarchy +which Fascism takes as being grounded on actual value, +the most unstable of all living reality thereby destroying +every notion of any permanent class or organisation—the +contribution to international politics of Fascism as the +immediate consequence of its national and political antecedents +comes to an end.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p> + +<p>Passing now to the exposition of the philosophical +genealogy of Fascism it may be well to remember first +that there are no such things as “national” philosophies, +philosophy being the historical process of infinite Mind; +secondly, that as a consequence of the oneness of such +a process, there are no such things as brand new conceptions +either in the most sublime of theoretical systems +or in their practical realisation such as pedagogy or +politics. Neither is there any such thing as an international +system, and this ought to be sufficient to destroy any hope +of internationalisation of mankind. Every great nation +is a contributor to the life of Mind, and may be said to +take in international politics a part which is proportioned +to its theoretical contribution. Each school of thought +takes the problems in the solution of which it displays the +peculiarities which distinguish its genius from another +school, either when this has given to it all the development +of which its own genius was capable, or when it is +developing it on unilateral lines.</p> + +<p>In philosophy good examples of this are the obvious +derivation of Bacon’s and Descartes’ problems from the +Italian philosophers of the Renaissance, and the mutual +influence of English empiricism and French rationalism; in +politics the influence of England on France during the whole +of the eighteenth century and of both countries on Italy +during the nineteenth century. Looking at any history of +philosophy or politics serves to illustrate the point. For +one follows the living process through which theoretical +notions are born one out of the other, and one realises +the part played by the characteristics of each nation in the +constructive play of historical forces. There could be no +stronger evidence both of the intellectual interdependence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>of countries, and the absolute necessity of their political +independence.</p> + +<p>The relation of theoretical and practical life ought no +longer to be one of exclusive opposition. Pragmatism has +done something towards the simplification of it and the +oncoming idealism is achieving it in a way that may be +said radical. In the history of the last three centuries, +however, we see philosophy considering thought and action +as the two terms of an irreducible dualism; yet such +dualism must not be considered a product of the perverseness +of modern thought. Ovid has left us a verse which +settles the point even for people unfamiliar with pagan +philosophy. It is only the deliberate application of a given +system which may follow after its conception, but the +spontaneous conformation of political reality to the actual +life of the mind is generally simultaneous with the conception +of the theories of which it is the practical expression. +A good illustration of the point can be had from Germany. +Lévy Bruhl has sketched the parallel development of +German philosophy and national consciousness in a work +which is not as famous as it deserves. After Hegel’s +death, when his system has given birth to its two political +offsprings, the statolatry of Imperialism and the myth +of Marx’s Communism, the maximum force of expansion +is on the verge of being reached by Germany and the +country is not far from becoming the prey of national +fanaticism, which is as blinding as the religious fanaticism +that appears in the history of all churches when, having +exhausted the force of expansion that is dependent on the +immediacy of their faith, they want to go on expanding +artificially through arbitrary force.</p> + +<p>Few legacies of the first centuries of modern thought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>have been as harmful as the divorce between the two +manifestations of human activity. It was, however, +inevitable. Faith in the positive teaching of the Church +was the first snare into which early thinkers fell; for it is +not exact to say that they professed the existence of two +truths merely to escape danger. They firmly believed it. +Most of them were good Catholics, and as sure in their +scientific maturity as in the days of their childhood that +the Church was right. On the other hand they were sure +of the result of their observations and experiments. They +were sure in both cases, and so they simply inferred the +co-existence of two truths. Nowadays, it sounds childish +and the reciprocal limitation of the two truths would be +obvious to any modern student, but in those days the +problem had not received the light that it has received +since; and they were perfectly in earnest. The philosophers +followed suit for two obvious reasons; science was +still for a very long time identified with philosophy, and +the sixteenth century thinkers, when they were faced by +the dilemma of being heretics or of discarding their +passionate researches, took to considering religion as +belonging to the practical manifestation of mind whilst +scientific and philosophic researches were its theoretical +activity. One more step and religion was to be identified +as the enemy of science.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>When Europe emerged from what has been called the +Dark Ages of obscurantism—in antithesis to the age of +light to which belonged the writers who thus labelled an +epoch, which was dark and obscure to them merely because +they knew very little about it—intellectual life was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>so full of buoyancy that men fretted at the tethers of a +school of thought which they could disregard after having +come to such efficiency under its discipline that they felt +like boys coming intellectually of age. Scholasticism +having patronised Aristotle as “The Philosopher,” Plato +was for the first time opposed to him, then Neo-platonism; +then modern “national” schools of thought arose at the +breaking up of the intellectual world. For a United +Intellectual States of Europe existed during the Middle +Ages; and the biographies of St. Anselm and St. Thomas +tell us eloquently how, in their centuries, a man could +pass from country to country to follow his studies with +the greatest simplicity. At the time of St. Anselm, +nationality could not be traced in a man’s works. By +the time Roger Bacon wrote the differences had developed, +and it is not impossible to find his character as a +sturdy Briton standing out distinctly in his works. Such +national tendencies expressed themselves only in matters +of little moment, and it is a fact that the wonderful correspondence +which passed between scholars kept the +humanism of each country in touch with that of all others; +it is none the less obvious that there were essential differences +between the character it gradually assumed in +various countries, a character and an attitude that may +be identified as the initial stage of the various European +mentalities.</p> + +<p>The best proof of this is to be had in the essential and +irreducible differences manifest in the conclusions to +which Italian, English and French philosophy came on the +very same problem, which they found on the threshold of +modern civilisation. Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon and +René Descartes treated the same question when their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>respective countries emerged from the later Middle Ages +with their respective schools coming to light from scholasticism +through humanism. The problem of knowledge +faced them in this dawn of modern intellectual life; and +the same passionate reaction against Aristotelianism +and scholasticism compelled their researches to take the +same bent. Yet they came to widely different conclusions +and the differences hold good even to-day as characteristic +of Italian, English and French mentalities.</p> + +<p>Bruno, whose metaphysic is wonderfully synthetic and +pregnant with a lyricism the echo of which runs through +the work of Vico, faces the problem of truth, of +scientific truth according to him, in order to find +theoretical ground to reject the authority of antiquity +considered by his forerunners as the well of all +worldly wisdom. A conception known to that same +antiquity but very uncommonly acted upon takes hold +of his mind. Truly old age must be wiser than youth, but +antiquity is, compared to his age, the nursery age of mankind, +and a fairly good student of the sixteenth century +knows far more than Aristotle, because he may know, if +he chooses, all that Aristotle knew, and all that has come +afterwards to the knowledge of men. Each generation +brings its stone to the constructive activity of man’s +experience. Hence the idea he expressed <i>veritas filia +temporis</i>. Thus he proclaims that which will be the motto +of every true Italian thinker; reality is essentially and +above all, Historical Reality.</p> + +<p>In England, Bacon, starting on the same errand, +through his researches, was induced also to consider more +and more that the regard of man for the authority of +tradition is one of the greatest obstacles to the progress +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>of science, and that servile veneration for Aristotle is, +above all, to be condemned as paralysing the initiative +of modern thinkers. Learning is not to be considered as +the work of antiquity, as a work already done; it is instead +an arduous task still to be accomplished and the +first step on the way towards its accomplishment must be +the rejection of the old logic and its syllogism. Man must +trust to his personal experience, the immediate experience +of his senses. Nothing could be more anti-historical in +its consequences than this assertion, the unilateralness +of which would be astonishing from a man who felt the +whole of historical and social world as a pulsing reality, +if it was not justified by the intellectual antecedents of +the English national consciousness coming to realise its +own personality just at the time in which Bacon thought +and wrote. He could not very well be expected to see the +condition of his own experience in the experience of his +forerunners, in the age in which self-assertion was the +successful motto of every great man flourishing in England. +The abstraction thus made of all the historical past +conditioning of man’s experience was balanced for the +time being by his own historical and political sense and +by the love of life as a whole so strong in Elizabethan +days. Yet henceforth reality in the eyes of any true +Briton was to be <i>Empirical Reality</i>.</p> + +<p>A French thinker faces the same problem. René +Descartes at first sight is everything that Bacon is not; +whilst the English philosopher is a mixture of recklessness +and worldly wisdom, anxious to enjoy everything that +power and wealth can beget, and drink to the dregs the +cup of life, the French metaphysician recoils from the cares +of power and the noisy turmoil of society. A longer consideration, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>specially from a more philosophic point of view, +reveals affinities that were going to tell on their theories. +Both lack the youthful enthusiasm common to German +and Italian thinkers, and both give shape to their theories +with a cautious prudence that marks them as men of the +world. Their conclusions betray their divergencies and +affinities much better than any analysis of their life and +character could; for Descartes certitude is reached by +way of induction when in the silence of meditation he +comes to his famous statement <i>Cogito, ergo sum</i>. The +touchstone of certitude is identified with the actual +consciousness of man in the act of thinking. If I think +surely I am; but of the rest, that is to say of the knowledge +of the exterior world I have no control, and traditional +science is communicated to me and was originally +obtained through the senses just as my actual objective +knowledge, therefore it cannot be accepted as certain. +Aristotle and all the traditional fetishism come to nought. +The <i>tabula rasa</i> is implied as definitely in this as in Bacon’s +work; in both cases man must begin his work from the +foundation and put to the test of his own experience, +empirical in one case, rational in the other, the legacies +of his predecessors. The difference however implied in +the terms empirical and rational is fundamental and the +pedagogy and politics grounded on English philosophy +whilst laying down rules and formulas inferred from +systematic theories, will always be susceptible of being +tempered by a direct call to experience and commonsense. +The rationality of French philosophy does not allow of +such adaptation. To this day the cogency for good or +bad which is characteristic of French theories is the consequence +of their perfect deduction from a first principle; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>hence the radicalness that mars some of their practical +application. With the exception of men greatly influenced +by foreign philosophy, the French thinkers all took reality +as being Rational Reality; and all their systems were +bound to be radical in their applications.</p> + +<p>In their rationalism or empiricism, France and England +threw overboard the past that loomed indeed rather +oppressive, and in so doing they assert man, in his individual +determination, as the ground of all reality. It is +perfectly allowable to consider that the two schools were +bound to stimulate and temper each other. The atom, the +monad at the basis of their system is always man, but +at the outset the unilateralism of Bacon’s gnoseology, a +method based so to speak exclusively on sense knowledge, +called for the mathematical and deductive method of +Descartes in order to display all that it held virtually of +scientific progress. On the other hand the French deductive +method, although admitting the inference and +resorting to it in its research of first principles, stood in sore +need of a well-balanced recognition of the part played by +sense perception in human knowledge. This will be +specially obvious in the political consequences of the two +theories. For both had their political system, in which +their common character prevailed, inasmuch as the seventeenth +century was for France and England the century +of metaphysics whilst the eighteenth drew the conclusions +of their premises, seeing to the application or realisation of +all that was fertile as a suggestion of a renovating process +to be undergone by society.</p> + +<p>Bruno’s historical reality was left in a corner, for it +could not have been integrated in our system to which it +was then contradictory, and still less in the political conditions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>that were to be the outcome of our theories, since +it was consonant with them only as far as the individual +was the basis of his reality as well as of ours. His individual +is, however, neither rational, nor empirical; he is +historical, and this implies that he cannot be considered +bereft either of his roots in the past nor of his projection +on the future. Nothing therein tends to diminish man; +on the contrary everything adheres to him, dilating his +personality right into infinity. But this notion of man +was far too difficult to be realised even theoretically in +the sixteenth century, and the arduous task of the French +and English schools was to pave the way for the German +and modern Italian thinkers and provide them with a +starting-point to reach the heights from which the relation +of the transcendental and empirical selves can be detected, +and the historical notion of man realised in the light of such +a conception. In Bruno it is not, however, a mere intuition +although it is realised only as far as the conception of +science and its historical development are concerned. +The practical realisation of this notion implied a new conception +of tradition and authority, which, far from being +shaken to pieces, are in it invested with a new and nearly +sacred character. Antithetic thereby to Protestantism, +it knocked no less against the transcendent reality of God +as understood then by decadent scholasticism and by +most Catholics.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II_1"> + CHAPTER II + <br> + HUMANISM AND RENAISSANCE SHAPING THE HISTORICAL MIND OF ITALY + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The spirit of Humanism—the veneration for antiquity +which animated it—was quite obviously different in +Italy from what it was elsewhere. That the difference +consisted in the closer affinity of the scholars to the world +they studied is obvious also. No greater proof is needed +than the difference between the architecture of the +twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Western +Europe and in Italy. Art, as conceived by modern +æsthetics, is that degree of mind, the function of which is +neither theoretical nor practical, but consists in expressing +through intuition the whole life of the mind. We can, +therefore, rightly appeal to art as the most faithful witness +to the spirit that animates an epoch. Ample documents +illustrating the difference between the spirit of Humanism +in France and in Italy can be found in the works of Emile +Mâle on the Gothic art of France, and in any illustrated +book of Italian mediæval Art, such as the small but excellent +album of Ojetti.</p> + +<p>Romanic architecture flourished in both countries between +the eighth and twelfth centuries, and its monuments +in France, such as St. Sernin of Toulouse, leave no +doubt as to the debt of the country to its Roman conquerors. +Even at that time, when the South of France +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>had not yet altogether lost its traditions as the Roman +Province, we can see new tendencies at work. In Italy, the +contemporary buildings, pieced together with fragments +of ancient columns, capitals, architraves, employed as +simple building material, point to the more intimate co-existence +in Italy of the old and new elements. It is +sufficient to recall two churches of the ninth century in +Rome, St. Maria <i>in Domnica</i> and St. Prassede, both +following the model of the great Constantinian Basilicas. +While their architecture is inspired by the classic age of +Christian art, and the materials are stolen from Pagan +monuments, their mosaics evince a healthy realism that +asserts the living tradition of local art, despite the obvious +and predominant influence of the East. But this persistence +of Roman influences does not exclude those of +the North; Carolingian art greatly influenced Italy, +especially in certain forms of decorative work. The golden +altar of St. Ambrogio in Milan, the canopy above it, and +some of the stuccoes at Cividale, prove the force of these +influences in districts ethnically and historically favourable +to their reception.</p> + +<p>By the eleventh century feudal society had either lost +or assimilated the pre-Christian elements, legacy of the +ancient world, which at first had cemented together the +various racial tendencies extant in Europe at the close of +the Roman Empire, thereby preparing the way for new +thoughts and ways of living. The Northern world had +fully realised a new social order, developing a new spiritual +life and consequently a new art to express it. Although this +art contains numerous and important classical and +Eastern elements its originality is manifest. We are confronted +with a new world with its own idealistic and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>naturalistic tendencies. The boldness of the architecture, +together with the minute rendering of nature in the +decoration testify to that union of abstract speculation +and close study of reality that will characterise all the +subsequent developments of Northern thought. Mâle has +clearly shown how the artists have drawn upon all the +theology, the philosophy and the literature of the age to +express at the same time both the highest spiritual and +the plainest practical life.</p> + +<p>Italian architecture of the same period, following more +faithfully the old tradition, stands in great contrast to +this originality. St. Ambrogio in Milan is an excellent +example of this traditional growth of Italian art in the +days that witnessed the full development of communal +liberty. Very different from the Constantinian Basilica, +even as the Commune was not the exact counterpart of +the Roman <i>Municipium</i>, its heavy structure, so eloquent +in its massiveness, must have appealed to its middle-class +builders. In other Lombard churches we meet with the +same attempt to create a new style with classical elements. +In seeking to harmonise traditional disposition with the +new needs, they tried to avoid the extreme novelties of +the North, too alien to the Roman well-balanced and +unlyrical mentality. The style of such buildings is present +to every mind and reveals better than any description the +unbroken descent from Imperial Rome. Indeed, from +Lombardy to Sicily, from Venice to Genoa, various are +the styles flourishing in the Peninsula; yet it is easy to +detect everywhere strong traces of such descent. The +Baptistery of Florence is a very good instance of this +traditionalism and recalls faithfully that of the Lateran +of the time of Constantine. In entering San Miniato in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>Florence, where the fanciful details of the decoration +follow and are subordinate to the severely classical +architecture, we almost feel on the threshold of the +Renaissance, although still in the eleventh century. In +the monuments of Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia we find the +same classical qualities in the architectural scheme, united +to the more poetic fancies displayed in the decoration. +There is thus a conscious dependence on antiquity in the +main architectural features, together with the utmost +readiness to accept foreign accessories. St. Mark’s in +Venice displays, even as the history of the amphibious +Republic, all the sumptuousness of the East, but even in +such an exotic scheme the architecture still relies on +Imperial Rome, which had itself absorbed many Eastern +elements. Torcello, Trieste, Murano, show as clearly as +the Lombard communes the slow process of evolution +that was to lead to the Renaissance. Byzantine elements +are not as alien as Gothic to Roman tradition. The contemporary +jurists had shown the great contribution of +Byzantium to the development of Roman law, and +Byzantine motives were assimilated more easily than +those from the North.</p> + +<p>The Roman legions had brought the great expanses of +the North into the orbit of history, but though they left +deep and undying traces behind them, they were unable +to destroy the virile qualities of the Northern races. +So when Christianity brought a new intuition of life to +the Western world it developed locally according to the +tendencies of the various nations. The result was bound +to be more original where men were less influenced by the +old Pagan culture and further from the mentality that +had produced it, among peoples who “<i>a cultu atque +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>humanitate provinciae longissime absunt</i>.” Even though +their growth was to be slower in some respects, such as +the cultural, such peoples were bound to absorb more +completely the full import of the new faith and thus produce +a thoroughly original civilisation. It was, therefore, +necessary in order to glorify the new religion to produce +an art as novel as the civilisation which inspired it. In +contrast to this affirmation of an entirely new mentality +Italy was influenced by the Roman traditions that weighed +upon her; they stimulated a premature efflorescence that +exhausted her virility for centuries. Her people were not +forced to elaborate afresh all the elements of life; the +Church had preserved for them the framework of Roman +life and law. Thus the energy expanded in France and in +England in working out a radically new society and civilisation, +in Italy drifted partly into adapting the old +formulas to the new necessities and partly into acquiring +a deeper consciousness of the intimate relations with the +past.</p> + +<p>In all the struggles from the twelfth to the fifteenth +century with the Empire and with the Church, the Italians +invariably appealed to the traditions of Ancient Rome; +and their appeal was not to a remote civilisation, but to a +living tradition of their own, opposed to the feudal +institutions of the barbarians. At the time of the Communes +this attitude is particularly striking. The peasantry +had taken shelter from feudal oppression in towns protected +by the authority of a bishop, and there with the +developments of commerce they grew in wealth and +political power. We thus find a new social class, the +burgher, that contributed immensely to the growing +importance of the cities. These strong practical men were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>distinguished by that common sense and pride that to-day +distinguishes the sturdy and self-assertive Fascists. +Having established their institutions, they considered them +a living part of their own persons, and brought into +political life their sense of personal dignity and the energy +of the mediæval Christian, ready to die for the ideas +represented by his Corporation, even as the Fascist is +ready to die for his symbolic Black Shirt.</p> + +<p>The Communes, in spite of their novelty, perhaps indeed +in consequence of the novelty of their self-assertion, were +responsible for one of the strongest historical bonds with +the past. For in their opposition to the feudal rights +acknowledged by mediæval law, they appealed to Roman +jurisprudence in order to prove the legal grounds of their +liberties. They instinctively conformed to the past, +creating forms of government rich in future possibilities, +and such conformity was not, according to Professor +Reggio, a mere question of high-sounding names. The +Communes reproduced of the actual and essential features +of the City-State, all those that could be revived. +Their classicism was by no means artificial, it was intimately +felt as the surest means of destroying feudalism, at +that time the most assertive form of individualism. Even +the present Fascist appeal to Rome is far from being mere +rhetoric; Rome is considered the one force antagonistic +to that anti-historical mentality due to illuminism, that +has given rise to abstract demagogy and individualism.</p> + +<p>The burghers, backed by the recently liberated peasantry, +formed the strength of the Commune, and upheld +the memories of Roman municipal organisation against +the prevalently Germanic nobility. The Government of +the Communes consisted of a college of Rectors with an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>Assembly of Elders, very much like the Senate of old, with +various dependent <i>clientele</i> that recall the <i>gentes</i>; the +heads of the various Guilds were called Consuls and took +command of their men in any emergency. Their defence +of civic liberties was essentially the defence of freedom +to attend to their trades and occupations. Here again +they anticipated Mussolini. What matters to the Commonweal +is not the individual but the interest he represents. +They considered that this freedom of work was incompatible +with the dependence of the Commune on any +superior temporal authority. This was so deeply felt +that the city was placed under the protection of a Patron +Saint, who, according to Ercole Reggio, was not unlike +the eponymous Hero of an ancient city.</p> + +<p>In attempting to justify these forms of political and +professional life the citizens of the Commune came still +more to consider themselves the lawful descendants of +the Romans. Studies of Roman Law were pursued with as +much zeal and vigour as any other form of practical or +religious life. As long as Pisa, Milan, Cremona, Pavia, +preserved their municipal liberties their whole life was +imbued with a strong sense of classicism which expressed +itself both in the intensified study of Roman Law, as +Professor Solmi has clearly pointed out, and in the art +of Niccolò Pisano. Such Roman and classical qualities +were to disappear when the towns lost their municipal +autonomy, only to reappear at the present day in the +idealism of Gentile, whose <i>Filosofia del Diritto</i> is as much +impressed by the seal of their realism as it is influenced +by the thought of Hegel. They reappear in the Reform +of the Italian Constitution, tending to substitute actual +interest as the dynamic basis of the State in the place of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>the static and naturalistic foundation it has had up till +now. They reappear above all in Mussolini, who told the +author he did not wish that a theoretical legislation should +regulate or rather paralyse the development of the new +corporations, but that, following the example of the +Romans, he wished the legislation to grow out of the +minutes of every single case submitted to the Corporation +Court. Before they disappeared they had pervaded all +Italian life to such a degree that scholars could say <i>we</i> in +talking of the ancient Romans, and consider Latin as their +own language. Ricordano Malespini says that Frederick II +spoke “<i>la nostra lingua latina e il nostro volgare</i>.” They +had two national languages, Latin and the vernacular, +the latter itself a degenerate offspring of Latin, known as +the “<i>romano rustico</i>,” to which could be traced all the +various dialects in spite of their local corruptions. The +Communes had also a great influence on the formation of +the Italian language, and this influence tended to unification +not to differentiation, as many historians have taken +for granted in consequence of their political individualism.</p> + +<p>Francesco de Sanctis says that intellectual culture +necessarily stimulates new ideas, far superior to the +material necessities of man, and thereby calls into existence +a more educated and refined class of citizens, putting +it in communication with foreign intellectual life. The +ultimate consequence is a closer connection of languages +that develops not their local, but their common elements. +According to him the first effects of renewed Italian +intellectual life were both to restore the purity of Latin +and favour the formation of the vernacular. Thus we see +how the classical revival started at the very moment +when the new Italian consciousness should have been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>born. This revival was aided by the establishment of great +international centres such as the Court of Palermo at +first, and later the cities of Tuscany and Lombardy. As +the studies of Latin improved, the local dialects became +purer and more refined. The weakness of the contemporary +writers for rhetoric, for verbosity, their exaggerated +love for the mere word, to which they attributed an +almost religious value, seems very often the naïve pleasure +of reasserting a family claim on a cherished property.</p> + +<p>Both Guelphs and Ghibellines are followers of Rome, +the former, as we have seen, finding in Roman Law the +legality of their municipal institutions, the latter appealing +to the traditions of Imperial Rome to justify the sovereign +rights of Cæsar. The whole public life assumes a religious +character as in all constructive periods of history and as is +the case in Italy to-day, where the previous lack of seriousness +has been considered by the greatest thinkers to have +been the product of religious scepticism. At that time the +object of the common veneration, the one universal feeling +of the most factious of peoples in the most factious period +of its history was the cult of Rome. And as Religion +played such an immense part in their whole life, the +Italians were obliged to christianise Rome and associate +it with Christian idealism. For Dante, Christ, and Rome +dominate the history of a thousand years. He views +history as a vast moral and religious evolution, as an +indissoluble whole, each portion of which converges +irresistibly to its pre-ordained end. The Birth of Our Lord +at the moment when Cæsar Augustus ordained that all +the world should be taxed testified to God’s approval +of the Empire. Christ, in submitting His Godhead to the +judgment of a Roman magistrate, gave Divine sanction to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>Roman Law. Dante does not consider the miraculous +origin of the Seven-Hilled City as the only proof of the +privileges it holds from God, nor does he ascribe to it the +more important favour of a special historical process. +Rome for Dante is equivalent to Catholicity, to conformity +to the plans of the Divine Providence, and the history of +Rome raises the Roman State almost to Divine rank. +Guelphs and Ghibellines find in the Roman Jurists and +the Roman Legions arguments in support of their opposite +claims, and when the advent of the <i>Signorie</i> involved them +in a common downfall, the consciousness of an unbroken +descent from Rome could never after be erased from +Italian mentality.</p> + +<p>The influence of Rome on all the mediæval institutions +of Italy is obvious to anyone familiar with the period. +But the Italians, at the dawn of modern history, were led +by this unbroken tradition of Rome into a habit of going +to Roman history and law for a solution of contemporary +problems, and this, while it secured their supremacy in the +field of jurisprudence, kept their mentality from developing +on original and modern lines. Even when Italy seemed +almost to have withdrawn from all competition in theoretical +research, her jurists and historians stood out to proclaim +the immortality of the national genius. The intimate +relations of the past with the present could never be lost +sight of by people who found in the political and legal +activities of ancient Rome the principles from which arose +their chief political idea, the dignity of man as a citizen. +They overlooked the fact that such wonderful citizenship +had never been bestowed on man as man, that the municipal +liberties, the privileges of the <i>Collegia</i>, the rule over +the barbarians, were the reward of the Romans, not the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>pre-ordained lot of Rome. Italian scholars felt with the +deepest conviction that her genealogy alone endowed +Italy with a primacy which they could not renounce. +Even had they so wished they could not have been a +modern nation in a modern world. The more they studied, +the more did they convince themselves like Petrarch that +they descended in an unbroken line from Marius and +Sulla. Their historical mentality was already formed and +they could not consider the human world otherwise than +as a narrow collaboration of successive generations.</p> + +<p>Dante, in his preface to the <i>De Monarchia</i>, has stated his +idea of this historical succession. “All men whom a +loftier nature leads to the love of truth seem to be most +greatly concerned to hand down to posterity the fruits +of their efforts so that, even as they themselves have been +enriched by the labours of their ancestors, they may to the +same degree endow their successors. Indeed, he who is +steeped in the knowledge of public affairs is certainly far +from fulfilling his duty should he not trouble to bestow the +fruit of his studies on the Republic, not like unto ‘a tree +by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his +season,’ but rather unto a baneful whirlpool that swalloweth +up all things nor ever restoreth what it hath once +swallowed.” Here we find the empirical expression of +what Giordano Bruno was to conceive theoretically three +hundred years later, thus foreshadowing the Immanentist +doctrine of history and society that Vico was to develop +some hundred and fifty years later still. Vico had, in his +turn, to wait until the second half of the nineteenth +century in order to be properly understood. His ideas +in 1916 formed the basis of Giovanni Gentile’s Philosophy +of Law, and at the present day are realised in the Italian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>Constitution as elaborated by the Government of Mussolini. +But Dante’s scholastic training could not allow him +to have the least inkling of the doctrine of Immanentism; +his ideal Monarch is merely a magistrate appointed and +endowed by God. For Dante all political power could only +be lawfully derived from the Divine law. Scholastic +philosophy could not conceive a law that should not be +dependent upon a superior will or a pre-existing law. +None the less, this empirical statement, such as it is, shows +already how no speculation could satisfy the Italian mind +unless it avoided the unhistorical position more natural +in those countries that had themselves evolved an original +form of society.</p> + +<p>The removal of the Papal court to Avignon gave Italy +a rude shock in affecting the good fame of the whole +country. The humiliation of the Papacy is resented all +over the Peninsula, and the eclipse of the Papal dignity +diminishes the prestige not only of Rome but of Italy. A +new religion, the cult of Rome, spreads in all Italian +hearts, and its ruined monuments are scarcely less venerated +than the relics of the Apostles. The glorious memories +of the Roman Republic, the pride of the Roman +name, give rise both to the unfortunate statesmanship of +Arnold of Brescia and, a hundred and fifty years later, to +the rash adventure of Cola di Rienzo. All those who +cannot boast such an illustrious descent are contemptuously +designated as barbarians, and this distinction gives +rise to the feeling of the unity of the Italian races. The +mystical and religious fervour with which the men of the +Risorgimento felt for Rome, so strong that it led them to +trample on their religion, was not stronger than that of the +first humanists. Petrarch and Boccaccio were already +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>preparing the way for the Renaissance, of which they are +rightly considered as the first pioneers. These enthusiasts, +who brought such inestimable benefits to the intellectual +life of the whole world, nevertheless introduced into their +own country the germ of many ills.</p> + +<p>The men of France and England could never feel at home +in the ample folds of Cicero’s toga as the Italians did. It +was for them, indeed, a useful garment worn with perfect +ease of manners as a ceremonial robe donned on state +occasions, or a protective covering unfurled in their +intellectual battles. Despite its assimilation and survival +as late as the eighteenth century in the ample periods of +Dr. Johnson or in the well-balanced sentences of Bossuet, +it did not modify to any degree the mentality of countries +with which it did not have a close affinity, although it +left in the minds a certain number of ideas distinctly +pagan, such as that of birthright. French and English +scholars looked upon Rome as something definitely outside +their own world, like the moon or the sun, and just as +illuminating to them as the former is to the night wanderer +and the latter to all the labours of mankind. This transcendental +quality rendered Rome indeed semi-divine in +their eyes, but fortunately kept them from considering +themselves the lineal progeny of Marius or Cæsar. Their +cult of antiquity was just as profoundly religious as that +of the Italian scholars with whom they were often in the +closest relations, only their attitude was more detached. +They were thus able to cut themselves adrift from their +masters with perfect ease when they had assimilated all +that was needful to develop their own natural gifts. An +abyss stood between them and antiquity; they were unable +to appreciate their real connection with antiquity. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>Their historical information as to the intervening centuries +could only be drawn from mediæval chronicles which, full +of detail though they were, did not offer any comprehensive +view even of a reign and much less of a century. +They failed to understand the essential continuity of the +history of all countries, and, while not making the mistake +of considering the Romans as their ancestors, they could +not conceive history and society as immanent in man.</p> + +<p>Petrarch, on the contrary, considers himself perfectly +Roman, although his lyrics are almost the first assertion +of modern individualism. His familiarity with Livy, +Cicero, Virgil, gave him an appreciation of classical Latin +that led him to consider that of Dante barbarous. What +matters to him is the form in which thoughts are expressed, +not the thoughts themselves; he wanted art +for art’s sake. Fortunately, his genius and the fervour of +his cult for Rome sometimes animates his consciousness +of the continuity of the past with the present. In the +<i>Canzone di Signori d’Italia</i> the new Italy that was trying +to recover her Roman and Latin tradition appears as a +fully grown personality. Guelphs and Ghibellines, Romans +and Florentines have disappeared, and Italy speaks the +proud language of the Queen of Civilisation. As Francesco +De Sanctis puts it, the poet is an Italian, conscious of the +superiority of his race. Marius is mentioned as if he were +an almost contemporary person. So deeply does the young +poet feel the classical world that henceforth he considers +the heroes of Greece and Rome as his ancestors. With +personal pride he assumes the military glories of Marius +and Cæsar no less than the ample rhetoric of Cicero. And +in this assumption of a ready-made glory as Italy’s inherent +right, cause of much subsequent political and moral +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>weakness, we may find the first signs of the contribution +that modern Italy is perhaps now on the verge of bringing +to civilisation. It is therefore natural that Fascism should +attack with energy the negative side of the legacy of +Humanism, the Italian fondness for rhetoric, union of lofty +words and mean deeds, while accepting and proclaiming +the historical conception that links man to the generations +past and future.</p> + +<p>The Italians of the fifteenth century continued to revel +in the glory of Rome and gradually forgot that there was +an actual and living reality, hardly consistent with their +superior attitude as the sons of Cæsar and Augustus. +Prose and verse improved so long as the cult of antiquity +retained its initial mystic fervour, that provided the +religious element indispensable to all creative art. But +when devotion to classical studies became a question of +interest or vanity, it was only from the very greatest +artists, from men whose real religion was the worship of +art, that one could expect sincerity. All the others were +only extraordinarily adept at the clever wording of other +people’s ideas. They could never fail to deck any subject, +no matter how mean, no matter how repulsive, in the full +pomp of a Ciceronian oration, rich in beautiful sentences +and displaying the careful study of all the figures of speech +to be found in the classics. Fraccastorius describes a +loathsome disease in the finest of post-classical hexameters. +Politicians could act as meanly as they pleased, sure that +the glory of Rome would raise them above the rest of +mankind. Even their real superiority in historical feeling +and in the interpretation of antiquity was a source of +weakness. For when beaten in war they could always +express contempt for the victors and call them barbarians, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>consoling themselves with their real intellectual and +artistic superiority for their political humiliation.</p> + +<p>In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, meeting +with no resistance worth mentioning. It is not surprising, +since the despairing cry of Boiardo</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“Mentre che io canto, O Dio Redentore.</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Vedo l’Italia tutta a fiamma e a foco”</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>is almost the swan-song of mediæval Italy. At the same +time a twenty-year-old youth, destined to become the +greatest poet of the age, Lodovico Ariosto, could sing +with perfect Horatian art and with an equally perfect +indifference for his country</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent18"><i>“asperi</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>furore militis tremendo</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Turribus ausoniis ruinam”</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>and with all the selfishness of unconscious indifference</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“Rursus quid hostis prospiciat sibi</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Me nulla tangat cura, sub arbuto</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Iacentem aquae ad murmur cadentis.”</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>He has adopted the measures and harmonies of Horace +and Virgil and, wrapped up in his pride in the glory of +Rome, goes on singing his classical bucolic loves in complete +indifference to the fate of his country:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“Est mea nunc Glycerae, mea nunc est cura Lycoris,</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Lyda modo meus est, est modo Phyllis amor.”</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Reality is a horrible dream, “<i>improba seclis conditio!</i>” he +is shocked that</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>“nuper ab occiduis illatum gentibus, olim</i></div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>pressa quibus nostro colla fuere iugo.”</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p> + +<p>Such a perfect Latinist could but seek to dismiss this +hideous reality by ignoring it and to find refuge in the +glorious memories of the past or in the creation of a world +of fanciful chivalry.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>The sixteenth century witnesses the final divorce of Italian +culture from real life, so that for two subsequent centuries, +instead of developing the moral and social qualities +of the individual citizen, as in England, in France and in +the Netherlands, it tended rather to the atrophy of all +real patriotism. But at this very moment, in opposition +to this dissolving and negative influence of Italian +Humanism, one of the greatest men produced by a land +ever “<i>magna parens virum</i>” stands forth to proclaim that +man alone is the creator of the historical world and arbiter +of his own destiny. The public life and the posthumous +fame of the Florentine Secretary are equally unfortunate, +but the present age is better prepared to appreciate the +truths contained in the works of Niccolò Machiavelli.</p> + +<p>He, like all the intellectuals of the period, would have +said “<i>we</i>” in speaking of the Romans, and he might +have used the phrase of Leonardo Aretino, “<i>Graecos +ΠΟΛΙΣ, NOSTROS CIVITAS appellavisse</i>,” had he +desired to trace the etymology of that political reality so +dear to his heart. But this identification was not sentimental; +he analyses closely the differences between past +glory and present shame. Strictly speaking, he is not a +Humanist at all; like Galileo, he repudiates Neoplatonism +and follows, rather, the experimental method. He carefully +dissects the past for the benefit of the present, and +deftly probes the wounds of the body politic. This +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>empirical standpoint indeed would be a grave defect, did +not his genius and sense of history as a living reality often +lead him to intuitions that transcend both his method and +outlook. The intuitions, the proof of the truth of which +was to be one of the chief conquests of modern thought, +are clouded by his prejudices or obscured by the inevitable +limitations of his knowledge of facts. His conception of +“virtue” is perhaps the most characteristic of those +intuitions that allowed him to foresee ideas only to be +understood by the end of the nineteenth century, and +only to be acted on by the present day.</p> + +<p>Of course, the idea in itself was not entirely new. One +of the ablest historians of the fifteenth century, Philippe +Monnier, has clearly pointed out that already in the +twelfth century the centre of reality had been lowered +from the celestial heights and firmly planted in the breast +of man. The polemics on Frederick II’s definition of +nobility are an assertion of the part played by man’s +individuality in the formation of the world. After two +centuries of Humanism, noble birth is an absurdity. For +Piccolomini, Ficino, Landino, man cannot be born noble, +he can only become noble through his own exertions. The +Stoic precept of the absolute autonomy of the human will +is frequently alluded to in discussion on the power of +Fortune, against which Leone Battista Alberti strenuously +asserts the power of man to forge his own destiny. Alberti, +typical representative of the Renaissance, in all his moral +works, emphasises the freedom of man from all external +influences and above all from the dominion of Chance, and +for him man’s life is a consequence of man’s actions. +Neither Fate nor Chance are a cause of the varying +circumstances of individuals.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p> + +<p>Having these doctrines before him, Machiavelli was +able to apply to the life of nations the ideas that governed +the life of the individual. Rome had been powerful and +glorious; Italy is weak and contemptible: the cause is +the moral corruption of the Italians. Machiavelli does +not always consider Italy’s invaders as barbarians; he +is always ready to study their institutions and ways of +living in order to discover the reasons for their military +superiority. He firmly believes that Fortune can only +display her power where no “virtue” has prepared a +resistance. Italy, “<i>vituperio del mondo</i>,” will certainly +return to her former strength could the Italians be aroused +from their torpor. His attitude is identical with that of +Mussolini’s government: Italy is slighted by the Allies, +she is financially weak, the cause is the scepticism and self-indulgence +of the people, the remedy a stricter conception +of life for adults and a more religious education for children. +Fortune, however, is not quite identified with Fate, and, +while the latter is unhesitatingly rejected, the former is +retained as a kind of background against which man can +display more efficiently his will and “virtue.” This background, +which he calls Fortune or Opportunity, is no less +a conception than Croce’s “situation of facts.” His +“verità effettuale delle cose” is the objective knowledge +of the Crocian “situazione de fatto” and must be ascertained +anew before embarking on any new action, for, +according to the shrewd Florentine, “sono le cose umane +sempre in moto.” It is, therefore, necessary to take one’s +bearings before embarking on any course to realise +one’s will. The best type of will is that which draws its +strength from an intimate knowledge of actual circumstances +and is consequently steady and resolute. Hence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>the profound morality of such will-power, pursuing its +end without hesitation or incertitude, disdainful of half +measures, its moral value immanent in the very act of +volition.</p> + +<p>It is no longer possible to continue to identify Machiavelli +with immorality or amorality, now that his doctrines +have been profoundly analysed by philosophers, jurists, +and critics of the value of Ercole, Croce or Gentile. We +only find in his works a transposition of the fundamental +principles of ethics. What he calls “virtue” is not to be +understood in its Christian sense. It is closely allied to efficiency +but is an efficiency displayed in the accomplishment +of the common good, in the realisation of a strong State. +Hunger and necessity can render men industrious but only +wise laws can make them good. Indeed the laws bring +people to realise the necessity of justice; social intercourse +gives rise to all the various conditions of life, including education, +religion, habit, law, and ultimately to the standard +of goodness. As Gentile points out, for Machiavelli as for +Spinoza the common good is a product of society; the +distinction between good and evil presupposes society, +that is to say a system of laws. Hence the saying put into +the mouth of Rinaldo degli Albizzi: “No good man will +ever find fault with anyone trying to defend his country, +whatever the means he may employ.” In commenting +upon this passage Gentile rightly says that those who +extend the common good from the country to the whole +of mankind do not expand but rather restrict the meaning +of the writer. Machiavelli by “Patria” understands the +entirety of social and civilised life, that is to say that +the State is the only historical and concrete form of +mankind. He is fundamentally opposed to any indefinite, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>unsubstantial idea of man that would strip him of all the +historical influences that determine his social and political +life, and that would make of mankind a shadowy abstraction. +Such ideologies could mean nothing to the +sixteenth century Florentine, but they do not mean much +more to the modern Italian, and this is the reason why +Socialism in Italy never developed its nobler side. Men +who, like Andrea Costa, were real idealists of the Marxian +school were devoid of any influence, despite the respect +due to their high standard of personal life. If the whole +of mankind is to be the object of the duties of every +individual, one might as well abolish those duties; what +is the business of everybody is the business of nobody. +Therefore, Italian Socialism was obliged to adopt not the +high, if impractical, ideals of Northern Socialism, but an +entirely materialistic form of propaganda, harping constantly +on higher wages and shorter hours, in order to +arouse the interest and secure the support of the masses.</p> + +<p>Machiavelli was obviously too much a man of his age +to be able to surpass the theory of man as an individual +attempting to realise his personality in a world in which +he could expand as freely as possible. He could not conceive +the objectivity and consequent importance of the +State as moral reality, and still less the intimate subjectivity +of the objective world in which man realises his will. +The very word “Fortune” kept to indicate actuality +was misleading, and veiled his real notion of freedom; he +severed liberty from law and by only retaining the former +he gave the careless or ignorant an opportunity for the +vulgar interpretation of his doctrines.</p> + +<p>Time and the works of Bruno and Campanella, stripped +of their heretical outlook, were to further in the mind of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>Vico the first maturity of the fruits of which the seed was +to be found in the Florentine statesman’s ideas of “virtue” +and political morality. Thus, while the other modern +nations were necessarily getting more deeply embogged +in their anti-historical attitude towards life, Italy, in the +political idleness of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries, was slowly elaborating those doctrines that +may yet prove to be the ballast needed by all countries +to weather the present political and social storms.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III_1"> + CHAPTER III + <br> + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND AND ITALY + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The contribution of England to the history of the world +during the seventeenth century is so considerable that the +very attempt to sketch it is almost an impertinence. It +cannot be reduced into schematic lines, for there never +was a richer synthesis of life. Never have religion, art, +and philosophy pervaded the whole life of a people as +they did in England at the end of the sixteenth and during +all the seventeenth century. Very highly refined periods +do not produce great arts and it must be said that with +very few exceptions the creative generations are bound +to be rather trivial. Strong minds, deep religious feelings, +the virile consciousness of personal efficiency, do not make +for tolerance and refinement in practical life; but they +yield a philosophical, an artistic, a political harvest on +which their progeny continue to live for centuries, elaborating +and refining until tolerance is the order of the day +in philosophical, religious and political matters, whilst +dilettantism and criticism flourish, preparing the way for +new generations of creative men.</p> + +<p>The philosophy of Bacon was essentially oriented towards +the world exterior to man, but it had already taken +to consider moral and especially political life in the light +of natural causes. The divine origin of the king’s majesty +was in due time to be denied in consequence of such a view, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>although Bacon little suspected the fact and was ready +to uphold such divine origin with all the force of his +genius. Another consequence was to be the consideration +of human society ruled by the same laws that rule the +mechanism of nature, and this was certainly pregnant +with political revolutions. The systematic empiricism +so characteristic of English politics need not be traced +farther back. Yet before coming to the political conception +of Hobbes, who was the first great follower of Bacon and +one of the first great political thinkers of England, the +contribution of Grotius must be considered as Hobbes +has a good deal in common with him.</p> + +<p>Hugo Grotius was born 1583, twenty-two years after +Bacon and five years before Hobbes. Like Bacon this +Dutchman was a statesman and an ambassador. The +practice of business had therefore a great influence on his +ideas and was apt to temper the excess of doctrine of the +man. His idea of natural law is a heritage both of Pagan +times and of Scholasticism, and based both on the distinction +established by the Roman jurists, between the +<i>jus civile</i> and <i>jus naturale</i>, and on the mediæval notion of +<i>sociability</i>, a special sense of which he supposes man to be +endowed by Nature. The way such a notion is applied +is, on the contrary, due to the more modern theory of +Nature; and there we meet with an assertion that would +have roused Machiavelli from his grave if he had heard it, +and that undoubtedly has given origin to the negative +understanding of history against which Idealism and +Fascism are reacting with all their forces.</p> + +<p>According to Grotius such <i>jus naturale</i>—the only branch +of legal studies that can be treated is philosophy—is based +on the essence of the nature of men. But such nature is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>the same all over the world just as Nature is. It will be +the same for ever in spite of historical oscillations just as +Nature will. The presupposition of this nature of man, +postulated out of and against every experience, is a negation +of history as the process of the gradual development +of mankind. Yet unquestionably its introduction in +modern politics was the cause of a great progress towards +justice, and in Grotius himself it is balanced by his insistence +on not taking positive law out of history. The +lack of good metaphysical ground brought him to the +postulation of an unhistorical reality whilst the recent +improvement of historical researches at the hands of +Jean Bodin and others induced him not to consider positive +laws except in the light of history. To be fair, this +instinct of society deeply inset in the nature of man was +not of his own invention. It is to be found in Aristotle. +It is to be found in St. Thomas. But then the instinct +compelling man to live in community is understood in a +very different way by the Greek philosopher, by the +great Scholastic doctor and by the Dutch statesman. For +if it is true that historical facts which are political, artistic, +military, receive their definite character from the ideas +of the generation that achieved them, it is equally true +that the meaning attached to traditional ideas by any one +man is to a certain extent modified by the whole life of +his generation. So that Aristotle understands by Nature +the transcendental power which planned the life of man +as a part of its universal scheme; Thomas Aquinas sees +in the nature of man that which was determined as +characteristic of mankind by the Divine will; whilst +Grotius sees in this sense of society something very much +like the law of gravitation—not quite, however, since in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>him we see looming out already the ghost of man anterior +to society, of whom nobody ever heard anything and which +is, therefore, a pure conjecture. Considering this nature +of mankind as his basis, it was inevitable that Grotius +should think the best constitution of the state to be one +the origin of which made it more likely to meet the requirements +of such nature. Once the filiation of law as the +product of this nature of man was established, private +and public law obviously derived from the <i>jus naturale</i>, +and the state must originate from an agreement of its +components.</p> + +<p>If Grotius had been able to realise theoretically the +immanence of the <i>jus naturale</i> in society he would have +foreshadowed all the political theories of the eighteenth +century, and worked out his scheme with far more cogency +than the men who came after him. As it is, the rationality +immanent to human society is too difficult for him and his +time, and unable to realise the moral will of the collectivity +he is thrown back with Machiavelli on a very empirical +notion of liberty. The subjectivism of Grotius is the +subjectivism of the philosophy of his time alternatively +empirical and rational, so that the contract by which men +give themselves a form of government is irrevocable: +they are free to assume it, not to reject it. Obviously the +souvenir of the Reformation with its political struggles +must have been quite fresh in the mind of his contemporaries +and influenced him, as the Revolution of England was +to influence Hobbes; otherwise it would be difficult to +understand how men could be considered as free to choose +a constitution and not to discard it. The contradiction +was too patent not to be noticed, but there again the +philosophy of Bacon and his followers influenced too +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>much the thought of the whole century to allow any resolution +of the difficult problem. It was the nature of man that +led mankind to form communities, and the mechanicalness +of this conception was so much a consequence of the +mechanism of the philosophy of the time that once such +communities had come to a contract entrusting their +government to one man or a body of men, the government +itself was conceived of as mechanical as Nature, and its +laws as irrevocable as natural law. The contradiction +inherent in the twofold notion of man’s nature, held by +men like Grotius, led them to deny the liberty of man +which was the ground of their theory.</p> + +<p>Hobbes has a metaphysic so clear, so well determined, +that his political conception is bound to have that +cogency which belongs exclusively to the works of men +whose philosophical grounds are theoretically first rate. +That Cromwell should have offered him a high office in his +government is not surprising. Obviously the mind and +character of Hobbes are for prompt decisions and coherency +of action. Yet his political theories are not fit +for actual application. It is not impossible that his ideas +should have influenced the political men of his days; but +his <i>Leviathan</i> is the conception of a man to whom philosophy +was <i>doctrina corporum</i>. Bodies can be natural or +artificial, and the state is the most important of all the +artificial bodies, man being both a natural body, the most +perfect natural body, and an element of the state, the +most perfect of all artificial bodies. Psychology is bound +to occupy the foreground in his anthropology, and no +philosopher ever laid a greater emphasis on the distinction +between theory and practice. Thought is considered after +the Cartesian doctrine as relatively free, and will as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>dependent upon thought; the superiority of the former is +acknowledged indeed by all the thinkers of the time and of +the following century. In psychology the consequence of +this distinction is a conception of the volitive activity +that foreshadows the more modern theories of determinism, +against which all idealisms have fought their most +strenuous battles and Fascism is actually leading a political +crusade. For Hobbes asserts the necessity of surpassing +the state of Nature, in which all men are free, by the sacrifice +of some liberties and by the sacred preservation of the +engagements of the contract. But on what ground can he +require such sacrifice and faithfulness, except that of +self-preservation? Thus selfishness is at the basis of the +edifice and there looms already the capital sin of the more +modern conception of Liberalism. The state is conceived +as the algebraical sum of the citizens, the selfishness of +whose life is guaranteed by the legislature.</p> + +<p>But Hobbes was English and, despite the influence of +French Rationalism, his logic was not so imperious as to +prevent his views on actual life from taking the upper +hand in some important parts of his system. Such an +artificial agglomeration of political atoms, understood as +it was to be the most realistic and naturalistic view of +political life, could not have stood the test of application; +and Hobbes is carried away by his own notion of the contract +into a theoretical view of it which is distinctly +superior in moral truth, and much nearer to historical +truth. When men come to an agreement for the defence +of the peaceful life of each of them the state comes into +being; but it is not a temporary, mechanical agglomeration—it +is unity wanted by men. In his natural state man +enjoys some kind of security based on the <i>concordia +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>multorum</i>, but this concord is not sufficient to ensure +peace, it is merely enough for animals. To ensure human +peace something more than common consent is needed.</p> + +<p>Union, the union of citizens becomes something superior +to the sum of their particular selfishnesses. Hobbes +realises that such union is a living reality and even if he +does not work out the way by which the notion of the +state as a person can be reached, he none the less joins +hands with all political idealism. In the middle of the +seventeenth century he had an intuition of the conception +upon which the Nationalism of all countries was to live +and act; whilst Hegel was to work it out in an abstract +theory and Italian Idealism to make it a reality by its +good fortune in having met with a political movement +able to realise this most historical of all the philosophical +conceptions of the state. Hobbes had had enough political +experience to realise intuitively that which his natural +mechanism did not allow him to conceive on theoretical +grounds.</p> + +<p>Such a happy intuition does not, however, take him +any farther. His state has nothing of a moral reality, +and the union of the citizens which it implies falls back +on the ground of the law of self-preservation. The fact +is that the state so conceived by Hobbes was an abstraction +despite the happy intuition of the oneness of will implied +in the contract; and his natural man another abstraction +not to be met with anywhere. The identification +of man and state only happens in history and there it was +to remain, unlooked for in England until Hume, whilst +in Italy Vico was to herald the reality of society and +history as the creation of man between 1720 and 1730. +Thus, like Grotius, Hobbes ended by denying the freedom +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>of will that the very possibility of the contract had implied. +His ideal state, his empirical state, his natural state, are +so conceived that they continually oppose each other or +are identified one with the other in his theory.</p> + +<p>The state is therein as mysterious as Nature, and its +laws are no less imperious than the laws of Nature, calling +as they do merely for passive obedience, and at least in +Hobbes’ theory the state is no less eternal than Nature, for +after the contract the less the citizens have to say in the +matter the better. Yet Hobbes was an Englishman and +the fact was to tell; even in this most abstract theory he +cannot lose sight of the realm of experience. And if the +ruler was a bad one? Like all his countrymen the father +of the <i>Leviathan</i> is ready to trip up his logic rather than +to offer a scheme which after all might not work. If the +ruler proved an inefficient or bad one the citizens could +discard him.</p> + +<p>In his opposition to the kingdom by the grace of God +the father of the <i>Leviathan</i> is led by his methodical +Naturalism—and not at all by a repugnance for any form +of tyranny. The social contract is a purely human affair +and nothing could be so ridiculous as the grounding of so +human a reality as the authority of the state upon an act +of the grace of God. But the more absolute is this authority +the better; and his indifference as to the choice of the +state-religion did not make for tolerance. Not to think of +Cromwell when one studies Hobbes is impossible; for +the philosopher in front of Nature, his almighty though +mechanical Nature, is just a fanatic observer as intolerant +as Cromwell and as energetic in the systematic application +of his philosophical faith. Only men of faith can alter the +historical world, for religion remains one of the greatest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>factors in men’s life, although it does not always appear +under the cloak of a definite church. In such cases, however, +it is often apt to be more intolerant and certainly +more dangerous—as all abstract dogmas are bound to be—than +those which have through their historical organisation +received some kind of adaptation to the society in +which they flourish. Cromwell was intolerant, was a +fanatic, but no more and even perhaps less essentially so +than Hobbes, and both are a perfect embodiment of the +genius of England during the first half of the seventeenth +century. Never has the life of a country expressed itself +more fittingly in its theoretical and practical term. Hobbes +like a bee had gathered after Bacon the best of Italy, and +the echo of Campanella is to be detected in the most +characteristic part of his theory of knowledge; he had, +besides, imported the result of the most recent scientific +works of the French and Dutch thinkers. England could +prepare on his intellectual contribution to put forth the +genius of Locke just as it could on the assumption to +political life of new elements make ready for the organisation +of the state that under William of Orange was to +arouse the envy of the world.</p> + +<p>The two fanatics, one in the immediateness of his faith +in the righteousness of God, the other in the elaboration +of his faith in Nature, had done a great deal in the way of +shaping the character of modern England, and the theory +of one and the revelation of the other held in germ much +that meant progress for the whole of mankind. But both +by their superlative intolerance and despotism called for +the reaction that was to oppose most formally man to the +state. For Hobbes at least the fact was inevitable, his +<i>Leviathan</i> engulfs all rights and interests; at the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>time in his theory of knowledge he picks up the trend of +Campanella and sets the basis for a nearly Protagorean +subjectivism. How far the theory of the <i>Leviathan</i> was +from Italian mentality cannot be judged from contemporary +opinion. The Italians, or at least the greatest number +of Italy’s scholars, were giving themselves up to academical +or to immoral pastimes. The Cinquecento had been +personified by Ariosto, Machiavelli, Aretino, the three +expressions of the Italian society during the sixteenth +century. The characteristics of the times had been an +artistic fancy, full of serenity, aware of its being a mere +play of imagination and making fun of itself; an adult +thought that swept away the illusions of fancy and feeling, +to make its own way towards the shrine of science, at the +very core of what is the world of Man and Nature; then +a moral licentiousness, remorseless because unconscious, +therefore shameless and cynical. Ariosto’s fancy is +displayed to such an extent that it mostly aroused mere +irony from his contemporaries. Machiavelli brings realism +and logic to their ultimate consequence, arousing thereby +a sense of repulsion in men far more wicked than he was. +Aretino’s cynicism reaches such a monstrous pitch that the +most dissolute men turn away sickly from his books.</p> + +<p>That was the era in which the great nations of Europe +were taking their definitive personal physiognomy. +(England, as has been said, had already the features that +were going to be the family likeness to be reproduced all +over the Anglo-Saxon world by her sons.) As De Sanctis +points out, the European races were building up the +“Patria” so fondly dreamed by Machiavelli for his own +people, a “Patria” which was to be a political unity, +fortified and cemented by religious, moral, and cultural +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>elements. At this same time Italy not only failed to build +up a “Patria,” but was losing her independence, her +liberty, and her beloved and treasured pre-eminence in the +historical world. Not that such a catastrophe was realised +except by the keen mind of Machiavelli. It was unconscious, +it was bound to be unconscious, since it happened +just because national consciousness had vanished. How +could it have assumed national shape? The name of +Italy was to become a geographical expression, for its inhabitants +were not citizens, they were mere inhabitants, +subjects by natural determination of this or that petty +Prince. The geographical name of a region becomes the +name of a nation through the very long or extremely +short process of formation of national consciousness that +permits of all its inhabitants coming on the historical stage +of the world as a person, through the manifestation of a +personal will in foreign politics, which are the country’s +assertion as a personal conscience. Thus a people is +acknowledged as a nation by the rest of the world the +moment when, through an action, the final scope of which +is purely national, it asserts itself as a living organism able +to manifest a will and act upon it. What Machiavelli had +termed the <i>corruttela</i> of Italy was the absence of national +and religious consciousness, and he had pointed a way +out of it.</p> + +<p>He was too much of a positive mind not to realise that +the difference between past and modern times was due to +a spiritual difference. Not knowing what to attack in the +mentality of his countrymen, both clever and learned +beyond words, he thought that the only great difference +between ancient Rome and the Italy of the Cinquecento +were the political institutions which of old had been based +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>on a religion that pervaded the whole of civic life, and now +were quite a practical affair modified continually by the +chance of other countries waging war in Italy. His great +blunder, the notion he had that the Roman state-religion +of Pagan times would be the one chance of salvation for +his own time is to be considered with due allowance for +the ignorance of the sixteenth century as to the real import +of the notion of progress. Machiavelli pronounced +human things to be always in movement, but in spite of +this intuition he could not detect the processional character +of such movement. As it was, it was sufficient to +induce him to reject the notion of the natural state of +Man as a constant so dear to Grotius. Yet it could not +help him to realise that his own times, with all their +wickedness, might be thought superior to Roman times; +and Guicciardini, a friend of his, felt himself much wiser +than Machiavelli because he had no illusion on the possibility +of making a nation out of his countrymen. It was +absurd to him, to be always calling on the Romans for +example, it was just like wanting a donkey to gallop +horsewise! But whatever the wisdom of Guicciardini, who +made his God of his own private peace and well-being, a +God no less exacting than the State of Machiavelli, and +considered the world as his world, thereby enforcing to +irrelativism the subjective atomism that was disintegrating +Italy, Machiavelli was a wonder child of genius whilst +his wise friend was merely a clever gentleman making +egotism the special study of his life.</p> + +<p>Mussolini’s view on the civic regeneration of the Italian +politically amorphous classes is very much like Machiavelli’s. +Political indifference is also to him a result of the +lack of religiousness in the spirit animating Italians in their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>public life. But four hundred years have passed and he +could not if he wished turn to the state religion of Pagan +Rome. If the basis of social life has to be religion, the +positive religion has to be the one historically belonging +to the people.</p> + +<p>In spite of the Machiavellian conception of history, the +sixteenth century was to see the introduction of the +experimental method, as practised in natural science, in +the treatment of history at the hands of no less a man than +Guicciardini. His <i>Storia d’Italia</i> is in twenty books and +covers the period between 1494 and 1534, thus beginning +with the invasion of Charles VIII of France and ending +with the fall of Florence. Francesco de Sanctis, with the +heart of a man of the Risorgimento, commenting upon +this work, so remarkable from many points of view, says +that the historical period of which it treats could rightly +have been called “The Tragedy of Italy,” but that the +historian has not the slightest notion either of the unity +or of the import of this tragic drama. One could object +to the great critic that to realise such oneness of drama +was impossible to Guicciardini, as the tragedy had its +root in the historian’s unconsciousness of this oneness or +rather of the possibility of this oneness, since such oneness +did not exist in Italy when Guicciardini wrote, except +perhaps in the heart of his friend Machiavelli. People of +other countries provided them with the political events +and the philosophical theories that kept their brains +going.</p> + +<p>The works of Grotius were taken and easily studied +in the land of jurisprudence, for the studies that went on +flourishing were law and history. But the purpose was a +sterile erudition, at least at the moment, for apathy had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>reached such a superlative degree that the martyrdom of +men like Bruno and Socino passed unheeded—worse than +unheeded, not understood—so that it is absurd to hear +modern Free-thinkers reproach the Church with the death +of Bruno, who was far from questioning the right of the +Church to burn him. The Church in its practical policy, +like all the institutions in Italy, was lacking in ideas and +in life. The centre of civilisation had moved northward, +and south of the Alps people were getting more and more +away from it, more and more effeminate. In a land where +indifference was the shroud of a martyr, Churchmen who +knew Bruno for the heretic he truly was could not be +expected to realise that apart from his heresy he had given +the world an idea that would enable modern thought to +realise the part played by religion in man’s life and to +reject the very idea which had severed man from authority. +The seventeenth century, inaugurated in Italy +by the burning of Bruno, had in literature little to boast +of besides the <i>Jerusalemme liberata</i> of Tasso, for it began +with the <i>Arcadia</i> of Sannazaro and ended with the +<i>Arcadia</i> of Guarini. On the other hand Campanella, the +most eminent philosopher, was not the only one. Although +the philosophers became less and less original they maintained +a sufficient theoretical interest to accept all that +France and England were throwing on the world.</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing is more expressive of the life of the +mind than this temporary intellectual dearth and sterility +of a race whose faculties were, even then, far above the +average. Reduced to political non-existence and therefore +to speculative unproductiveness, the whole country +seemed to have gone to pieces just on purpose to let the +new nations shake off the yoke of history, of a history too +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>heavy with its pagan heritance to allow full play to the +new forces of modern, that is to say Christian, civilisation. +For modern thought and modern politics seemed to reject +authority and history, in order to have the possibility of +displaying what they held virtually in their mediæval +and Christian youth. They rid themselves of the past just +as the Church had done at her start, throwing overboard +Pagan culture. But is it not allowable to think that just +as the Church ceased to be anti-philosophical as soon as it +had asserted its original intuition, modern nations will +cease to be anti-historic now that the value of man as a man +has been asserted, and has even been over-asserted? For +if such were the case then Italy’s standing out of the game, +in order to elaborate slowly the historical forces that may +contribute to give back to the world the ballast it seems +to have lost, would appear to be in harmony with the developing +process of Mind. Nations have their dawn, their +twilight, and their night, but Mind never rests or sleeps, +and through their individual characteristics all the races +tell more or less directly on the whole life of mankind. If +Italy had to stand aside to let England and France assert +the individual worth of the most inferior human beings, +and work up systems where the weakest may be heard in +legal circles, then her attitude all through the sixteenth +century is that of a boxer training for his next match. To +rid politics and law of the idea that legitimised all authority +by appeal to the Will of God (as it was commonly +understood to be a kind of <i>Deux ex Machina</i>) something +had to be appealed to that could be considered as a religious +support on the modern side. Nature was upheld as +antagonistic to superior authority and religious interference. +Yet Nature, at least to the men of the seventeenth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>century, was the work of God, and if mankind was endowed +with a longing, or beset with a necessity for society, +surely the Creator of mankind was responsible for it. The +fact is that it was not of the will of God that the jurists +and philosophers wanted to be rid, for they could have +found cogent arguments to uphold the thesis, so dear a +century later to Rousseau, that God had created man free, +and that he was therefore at liberty to choose the political +constitution that suited him best—conforming by so +doing to the Will of God: it was the authority of men, +the authority of tradition, which taught that it had always +been the natural lot of some men to obey, and the natural +lot of others to command; and that is far more Pagan +in its political origin and Aristotelian in its theoretical +form than Catholic. It was the hierarchy of birth, quite a +Pagan notion, that men were fighting against in Northern +Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth +centuries.</p> + +<p>Aristotle’s first book on politics settles the point for +the hellenic world. Some men are born to be masters; +some are born to be slaves. He that is to be a master is +born with the qualities that befit command; he that is to +be a slave is born with the qualities required to fulfil +orders. Were it not so, Nature would have failed to fit +each of them for the end to which it brought them into life. +Man was what he was to be anterior to his birth. As to +slavery, as an institution it was to be deplored; it was +rather sad for the people who were born slaves, and terribly +immoral at best, but it was an evil that could not be +avoided inasmuch as it was essential to the nature of +society. The metaphysics and religion of the day could +not conceive of any alteration in the nature of things.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p> + +<p>The Stoics and Epicureans did improve, but not much, +the idea of liberty. The best thing for men to do was to +know Nature and their own natural disposition, not to go +against the natural bent of things and of their constitution. +Thus the part of Fate was reduced and the dignity +of man asserted. But the reduction and assertion would +have been more verbal than actual had it not been for +the Romans, who with their realistic mind could not +overlook the fact that man’s <i>virtus</i>, or lack of it, made a lot +of difference in his life. Their religion and philosophy +though lacked originality and had no adequate notion of +liberty.</p> + +<p>Christianity was to relieve mankind from such a fate. +Man is in the world to save his soul. The grace of God +is necessary to him, but he only can achieve his own salvation. +If you want your horse to jump, as the sportsmen +of the old school used to say, give him his head; the +freedom to use his neck, head and shoulder to the best +of his ability. If God means man to save his soul, he must +have given him sufficient freedom to be made responsible. +And in fact the proclamation of this power of man is the +import of the New Testament. Everything is possible to +him that believeth. This is far from Aristotle, so far that +men could not at first realise what it meant, and that the +abolition of slavery is only recent is sufficient to show the +slowness of the process through which the good word of +the Gospel has reached theoretical consciousness and +practical realisation.</p> + +<p>Man’s liberty, man’s dignity, were asserted all through +the Scholastic period and the prayer of Thomas Aquinas +thanking God for the dignity He had bestowed upon man +is a good proof of the fact. It could, therefore, only be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span>through the greatest misrepresentation of historical facts +that Pagan times were identified with the cause of liberty +and equality of men, two ideas that are essentially Christian +and were in their present form unknown to Paganism. +Such perversion of facts cannot be, however, ascribed to +a wilful adulteration of history. The men who upheld it +are too many and some are too obviously sincere. Yet +on the other hand it is impossible to ascribe it to an instinctive +foreboding of immanence as nowadays understood. +The only possible explanation is the force of repulsion +for the immediate past that is inherent in the +historical assertion of any new social force. A new age +always asserts itself by fighting its antecedents and often +the very cause of its coming to light.</p> + +<p>Hobbes, rejecting sovereignty by the grace of God to +enforce his own conception of the sovereignty of his +<i>Leviathan</i> grounded on the <i>Bellum omnium contra omnes</i>, +is merely conforming to the philosophy of Nature, which, +as materialism, was to him a religion, a new religion that +must take the place of the old one, at least amongst +educated men. In its objectivity Nature stood to him as +God; an awful divinity that had a good deal in common +with the God of Calvin in the inalterability of its will. +But few of the new thinkers had the courage to be as +coherent as he was. For he was quite aware that the +substitution of Nature for the God of Christianity, as the +ultimate reality to which political forms had to be traced +back, made for a greater implacability of political laws. +The others sometimes pretended to believe and mostly did +believe that the unknown <i>quidditas</i> which they call human +nature had a luminous social instinct that had been marred +through what they called the Dark Ages; and they did not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>realise that the belief in such nature of man was elaborated +in the schools of the Middle Ages, and that if it was taken +for granted as much as the geometrical postulate that +makes the three inner angles of a triangle equivalent to two +right angles, it was just as abstract and could no more be +proved on experimental ground. The nature of man taken +as implying the necessity of or longing for social arrangements +is illustrated in history; but it is the essence of +history to relate to men the deeds of men, thereby is enforced +the necessity of having society in order to have +history. So that isolated man cannot enter history. Of +men anterior to society we can, therefore, know nothing. +But prehistoric times are not of necessity presocial; indeed, +the art that flourished in such periods shows the +existence of social intercourse in times of which we have, +up to now, no historical knowledge. In any case the philosophy +of politics if it wants to borrow the experimental +method of natural science must take history for its basis, +with all the limitations that this implies, in order to reach +positive conclusions. The political thinkers of the seventeenth +century thought and acted as men of deep convictions, +but of very faulty methods; the world they cast +into shape reposed on an assumption which is the most +metaphysic of all the metaphysic axioms they hated so +much; it will be more and more obvious through the +eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>Italy stood aside. Italian minds could not have made +such a position theirs. The attitude of a Bacon, of a +Descartes, of a Hobbes, could not be assumed in the land +of Machiavelli and Bruno, the fathers of the idea of history +understood as a constructive process of Science and +Society, of Campanella, the man who foreshadowed in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>the sixteenth century the phenomenologic conception of +reality and the notion of immanence: which may have +been, which was in fact heretic, but is undoubtedly the +offspring of Christianity, and knows that it is. The race +whose energy and virility had been maimed by the +constant contemplation of the past, by thorough identification +with the past, had been politically stunned like +the people of the Bible who turned back when they should +have been looking and proceeding forward. Italian +scholars kept assimilating and admiring the philosophical +production of foreigners, and the more readily praised +and the more truly appreciated the new theories that they +felt farther from imitating them. What they could give +they gave, in legal and historical erudition, preparing +the materials on which Vico was to build his imposing +Scienza Nuova and preparing the historical ground for the +philosophy that flourishes two centuries after him, just as +Scholasticism had prepared the abstract ground on which +the theories, that were to give their democratic or individualistic +impulsion to the modern world, flourished two +centuries after a reaction had started against the abstractness +of Scholasticism.</p> + +<p>Francesco de Sanctis realises it because he has lived +for this oneness of Italy, thereby giving it the full reality +of an historical person. Guicciardini was as interested in +the calamities that befell the individuals as de Sanctis was +in the tragedy of his country, and if he filled twenty books +with the matter of two good books it was because Italy’s +genius had lost for the time being its synthetic power. +He was an accurate man, with immense knowledge and +great acuteness of mind taking each fact in its most +minute particularity, but losing sight of the importance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>of such events as the Reformation. He was a naturalist +and uses the same methods as if he studied vegetables or +minerals, looking into the intimate structure of facts to +find out why they are as they are. Men therefore appear +in his work like a product of Nature, whose actions are as +fatally determined as those of an animal. It is impossible, +therefore, to find in Guicciardini’s twenty books a single +page alive with the feelings that throb in Machiavelli’s +historical works; he keeps the calm brow of the naturalist +counting the legs of an insect. And Italy, until Vico +comes, will go on between these two ideas of history and +society.</p> + +<p>Guicciardini sees man free in appearance, but in reality +bound to act according to the determinations of his +character, of his temperament, of his circumstances; and +the wise historian can very nearly make out beforehand +that what he shall do with the same approximate certainty +with which the naturalist can tell the way the swallows +will take when the wind and atmospheric pressure are +known.</p> + +<p>Machiavelli foreshadows a kind of sociology and in his +truly Italian synthetic view of history he sees the play of +the various forces, spiritual forces, that make of the human +world a different realm of reality from that of nature, +where forces exclusively physical are at play. “Patria,” +liberty, nationality, humanity, social classes, interests and +passions, are to him forces that move man, but would +never move a plant or a tree.</p> + +<p>But the fact is, to quote again De Sanctis, that Machiavelli +is the starting point of a period and Guicciardini is +the ultimate end of the preceding age.</p> + +<p>France, Spain, England, Germany and the Netherland, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>were overrun with blood, shed either through the War of +Religion or in consequence of the Inquisition, in the proceedings +of which the governments of the different states +interfered to further their political interests though seldom +on the side of mercy. In Italy there was no struggle; men +do not face death or torture without passionate convictions; +and while other races, young as they were, had +such strong convictions the country which had reaped too +easy and too rich a harvest between the eleventh and +fifteenth centuries, had given all that her assimilation of +ancient wisdom could give, and at the end of her career +she sat exhausted on the wayside to watch the young ones +at play, as a connoisseur watches a boxing-match and +takes all the hints which may be useful to him. Metaphysics +could not flourish under such circumstances, as +virility is the first requisite for original thinking, so +Italian scholars stood on the watch taking law and +thought from abroad.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV_1"> + CHAPTER IV + <br> + THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The history of France from the advent of Louis XI to +that of Louis XIV displays in its development constructive +tendencies so definite and constant that its +edifice, at once harmonious and imposing, seems the +realisation of an architectural scheme perfectly in keeping +with the genius of France. Everything tended to that +unification of the country, to that union of the provinces +the necessary consequence of which must be the centralisation +of administration and the concentration of political +power in the hands of the sovereign.</p> + +<p>The idea of absolute monarchy has never been conceived +and realised in exactly the same way as in France. M. +Jacques Bainville is fully justified in holding that the +kings of France made it their main duty to concentrate all +their efforts on identifying themselves and their dynasty +with the development and consolidation of the unification +of the country. But it has yet to be shown what is really +the origin of a conception of political reality that so far +seems to be unique.</p> + +<p>Monarchy was indeed just as absolute in Spain and in +Austria. But in both countries it remained comparatively +feudal. So that the <i>bourgeois</i> origin ascribed by M. Bainville +to the Capetian Monarchy, its intimate relations with +the Middle Class amounting to a sort of mutual league +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>against the great feudal lords, is sufficient to endow it with +the modern character that attracts the student, eager to +penetrate to the living core of the life of political institutions. +It could not, however, account for the rationality +of its development, for the harmony and beauty of its +historical features. In the last half of the sixteenth and all +through the seventeenth century France and her monarchy +are endowed with a beauty that exercises a permanent +fascination. It would be true to say that the part +played by France at that time in the civilisation of the +world was to a large degree æsthetic.</p> + +<p>Modern philosophy, above all in Italy, understands art +as the expression of the life of mind. Hence, a battle, +a treaty of peace, a law, a form of government, can be +considered an artistic masterpiece just as well as a poem +or a monument. Now between the coronation of Henry +IV and that of Louis XIV the monarchy of France perfectly +expresses all that is positive and, therefore, historically +constructive in the life of the country. Its spiritual +and practical forces meet in the king’s person and receive +thereby their historical realisation.</p> + +<p>“<i>L’Etat c’est moi</i>,” says Louis XIV. “<i>Cogito ergo +sum</i>,” says Descartes. The self-assertion of the king +identifying the whole of political reality with his empirical +person is not without affinity with the import of the +Cartesian assumption in which the criterion of certitude, +the root of all reality, was identified with the individual +act of thinking. The self-assertion spontaneously coming +on the lips of the Sovereign and that coming out of the +meditation of the philosopher is one and the same thing. +It is the consequence of sixteen centuries of Christianity, +and in their mathematical conciseness the two formulas +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>are the best proclamation of the genius of France in all its +clear, simple and luminous logic. They are, however, +at the same time a revelation of what is weak in that +genius. To be so clear, so luminous and so simple, French +philosophy was bound to be abstract and radical. The +radicalness of mind common to the Jacobins and to the +more modern anti-clericals and democrats caused the +elimination of the feudal class as a factor in political life, +a fact which was bound to carry in its trail the political +revolution of the eighteenth and the economic one of the +nineteenth century. When a government reduces a class +to political non-existence the part formerly discharged by +that class must be entrusted to another, which is bound +to claim in exchange for the support offered to the government +in the struggle against the class displaced the +privileges previously granted to its rival for services +rendered to the state.</p> + +<p>France one, under the government of one man. It +bears a family likeness to the tragedies of Racine and +Corneille. Such an idea is great and beautiful as <i>Horace</i> +and <i>Le Cid</i>. But it owes its grandeur to a simplicity that +condemns it to leave out much of political reality, which +is indeed as complex and multiform as life itself. Therefore, +though it is beautiful, its beauty is bound to be a tragic +one. When the concept had become a fact, when Louis +XIV could say <i>l’Etat c’est moi</i>; when France was at least +one under her King, the French monarchy was in the +position of the bullet that has been shot right in the bull’s-eye. +The aim is perfectly caught, the steely little thing is +helplessly stuck there, useless. The funeral knell of +absolute monarchy is rung by this identification of the +Sovereign with the State. As a political institution it was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>perfect. Perfection is static and cannot, therefore, belong +to life, which moves towards perfection but never is +perfect.</p> + +<p>Politically the feudal nobility was hewn down with the +indifference with which a venerable forest is razed to the +ground to make a French garden. The trouble was that +society is not a garden which once laid down can be kept +by a succession of good gardeners in consonancy with the +plans of the architect. In France society was to go on +living its historical life of eternal alteration and formation. +The political abolition of the nobility was a most active +ferment to breed more speedily the modifications to +come. The French nobility lost its virtues; corrupted +by the idleness enforced upon its members, it infested the +moral atmosphere and this in spite of the very remarkable +men produced by some of the old stocks. Soon the other +classes required its social elimination and they wanted +it to be as radical as the political annihilation had been. +Undoubtedly the kings had been obliged to destroy what +should have been their natural support in order to conform +with the political conception that had been elaborated +by logical French minds. The king and his people +making one without the intervening links of classes—no +constitution could be more simple; but its realisation +required the amputation of what is necessary to the life +of any monarchy.</p> + +<p>Descartes and the Roi-Soleil are so adequate an expression +of their epoch that they may be considered as the +characters of the prologue to the tragedy that was to +bring the next century to its close. M. Jacques Maritain +has rightly bestowed on Descartes the epithet of revolutionary, +but it could be extended to Louis XIV if one did +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>not run the risk of seeming paradoxical. For both their +self-assertions, politically and theoretically absolute, are +equally anti-religious and anti-historical. The position +assumed by Mind whenever man is really religious implies +self-negation. If God is, He must be infinite and Man, by +comparison, nothing; at least such is the logical sequence +of the doctrines upheld by most religious people. And +when Mind is speculatively too poor to realise the necessity +of the religious moment in which man bows down to everything +that is not his beloved self and accepts the law that +such recognition begets, man can turn to history and +trace there intuitively (as the first great thinker of Italy +has done), the part played by each one of mind’s activities. +Religion then appears independently of personal conviction, +a constant element in the life of man, more or +less preponderant, always there, as the recognition of all +that is to man not-self. It is where modern thought has +failed to realise this, either theoretically or historically, +that it knows only the first term of the relation which is the +basis of every social organisation. Liberty and law are +correlative terms just as are light and shadow. Liberty is +the claim of the subject and law springs from the recognition +of the object. Louis XIV and Descartes, thanks to +their unbounded selfishness, assert emphatically their +empirical individuality. For them the self swallows up +the other term the not-self, that the modern world after +them seems to ignore.</p> + +<p>Descartes was endowed with the most precious gifts +that make the scientist and the thinker. Yet it can be said +that his greatest fortune lay in the fact that he embodies +most perfectly all that is characteristic of the French mind. +Foreigners, even when their knowledge of his language is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>far from perfect, can take his <i>Discours sur la Méthode</i> and +read it with perfect ease and a feeling of intellectual and +æsthetic well-being. To read this and to walk through the +park of Versailles are equally indispensable to understand +that great century in France. And both walk and reading +make very much the same impression.</p> + +<p>It is true that the reader will easily pick up in the +Cartesian theories ideas known to St. Augustin and to the +Scholastic Doctors against whom Descartes reacted so +violently. The visitor might just as well notice in the park +or on the noble façade of the palace lines and decorative +patterns reminding him of the Renaissance Villas seen in +Italy, but this does not deprive the palace and its setting +of their purely French character. The fact is that the +seventeenth century with the last half of the sixteenth +and the first of the eighteenth, appears in the life of Mind, +i.e. in history, as an Anglo-French period, whereas the +fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth had been in +their artistic and intellectual production mainly Italian.</p> + +<p>The ideas elaborated in France and in England had +come from everywhere and from all centuries, Italy being +chiefly the historical and natural agent of communication, +a sort of historical point of convergence between antiquity +and modern times as she is geographically between east +and west.</p> + +<p>The idea of originality, without playing upon words, +can be called the “original sin” of our modern world; +born from the contempt of Bacon and Descartes for the +past, it is ending now in Futurism and Bolshevism. To +attempt to create something new without roots in the past +in art, politics, science or philosophy is not merely absurd, +it is impossible. The living dialectic we term history displays +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>each of its moments as the logical sequence of the +preceding one and the elaborating stage of the next. The +work of Descartes will live as long as our intellectual life +lasts. Yet this very work, in which he inaugurates the +anti-historical method, is the best illustration of the law +of history, displaying as it does the riches of a mind in +which were interwoven the legacies of the past and the +germs of all that was to be subjective and positive in the +philosophy of several centuries.</p> + +<p>Louis XIV brought a political form to the precision of +a mathematical formula, that is to say he made it absolute +and by so doing rendered the evolution, characteristic of +all social organisation, impossible for the monarchy he +represented. That which is absolute is unalterable. To be +absolute this French monarchy had to be static; whereas +every political system must be dynamic. Perfection is the +negation of development. The person of Louis XIV was +the perfect realisation of France’s ideal of an absolute +Sovereign and as such it was, therefore, the conclusion of +the process which had brought him to the throne.</p> + +<p>The method of English empiricism, which consisted, +after Bacon, in looking at the exterior world with wide +open eyes to get a notion of reality based on sense knowledge, +was taken up in France with as much enthusiasm +as the theories of Descartes were taken up in England. +The two countries balanced each other, France tending +to the unity of man’s consciousness, England to the full +realisation of the world of senses. Life obviously is neither +of these but their combination or more properly their +synthesis. So that the mutual influence of both countries +is the best illustration of the life of mind, single in its development, +multiform in its manifestation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span></p> + +<p>What is tragic in the philosophy of Descartes is almost +perfectly illustrated in his own life. No one has more +eloquently proclaimed the subjectivity of life and reality +than he has through his own scholarly selfishness. Only +Louis XIV could be his rival in this self-assertion. The +self-centred monarch, the self-centred scholar, can vie +with each other. Therefore he may be held to be just as +anti-religious and anti-historical as Louis XIV; the one +could not forget the majesty, the other the genius, with +which he felt himself invested to bow down in worship +of the King of Kings, in worship of the Word of eternal +thought.</p> + +<p>Yet both were believers and convinced Roman Catholics. +The contradiction of fact thus introduced in their lives +find its most exquisite expression in the vow of Descartes, +when he pledged himself to make a pilgrimage to Our +Lady of Loreto if he could get rid of all the duties that fell +to him as a soldier, as a man of the world. They prevented +him from attending freely to the satisfaction of his longing +for scientific researches. Hence his impatience to retire +from this vast world, full of rights and duties, where men +suffer and require help and love. The anti-religiousness +of such feeling need not be emphasised, it is obviously +worse than that of many people who, calling themselves +atheists, were drawn into deifying nature or their own +negation of God!</p> + +<p>To tell man that he has only to turn his mind inwards +to find in the most intimate recess of his soul the criterion +of Truth and consequently of Justice, is a most Christian +saying. But in the works of St. Augustin, where Descartes +found it, it implies either the belief in God’s presence +in the heart of every believer, or the immanence of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>transcendental self in every empirical self, whereas in +Descartes’ own writings and mind neither of the two is +to be found. His rationalism seems brutally to reject +belief outside philosophy, outside the theoretical and intellectual +world altogether. It only <i>seems</i> to do so, because +it is one of the first stepping-stones of Idealism, but of this +he could not even dream and he went on establishing between +will and knowledge such a relation that every +rational act ought to be good and every irrational one +bad. Hence the duty of vulgarising rational thinking +through education, which was to become paramount in +pedagogy and politics. Hence again the radicalness of the +difference between educated and uneducated which was +to produce in our modern democracies a class difference +far stronger than that of the Middle Ages when a man +could be made squire or even knight provided he proved +his personal valour in actual deeds.</p> + +<p>English philosophy received through Hobbes all the +rationalism it needed to balance the excessive empiricism +of Bacon and the world was ready for Illuminism, which, +originating in England, became one of the greatest and +noblest movements recorded in history in spite of its +many flaws.</p> + +<p>Italy could not, indeed, offer anything to make up for +such rationalism and empiricism. With her political +virility the whole country was daily losing its speculative +originality and fecundity, for as Vincenzo Cuoco was to +realise a century and a half later, the two manifestations +of man’s genius, political and theoretical, usually go hand +in hand. The intellectual gifts of Italian scholars were +wasted in academic pastimes or devoted to works of +erudition, which prepared for the genius of Vico the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>materials of his historical vision of reality, but were of +little avail to counteract the impatience displayed by +France and England, turning their backs upon history in +order to feel free to shake off the yoke of every traditional +authority. Feeling, intention, worship, so many elements +of spiritual life, were almost discarded to make room for +the goddess Reason.</p> + +<p>Art and Religion were thus denied in their essence. Art +could only be at best didactic or hedonistic, it was, therefore, +considered at the service either of thought as a means +of vulgarisation of scientific knowledge, or of sensation as +capable of causing agreeable emotions. As to Religion +it was disposed of in a more radical way. Theoretically +misrepresented, historically ignored, it was to be tolerated +by English philosophy for practical reasons as a political +instrument and as the best educative force. It had been +useful and necessary in the centuries of dark ignorance, +but to the century that was to call itself the age of light +it was a hindrance, an impediment of which mankind was +to be rid at all cost. Illuminism, that is to say the enlightenment +of the people, and the anti-religiousness of the +philosophers were identified. The war waged against +religion was confused with the war waged against ignorance. +One step only was needed to make of ignorance +a synonym for religion.</p> + +<p>Nobody waited to enquire why religion was everywhere +and why it was always a factor in social life; nobody +anyway could have answered the question as it would +have implied historical research, a synthetic view of +history, for which no one was fit. The Italians lacked the +philosophical basis for such work, France and England +lacked the turn of mind necessary to do it with intelligence. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>Germany was still in her teens until Leibniz came to +proclaim the intellectual coming of age of his country. +Thus religion was a puzzling problem to philosophers and +the lack of intelligence towards this enigmatic X was to +breed a great many political difficulties. Religion alone +could have made up for the oncoming individualism, first +social, then economic, which threatened universal destruction.</p> + +<p>Man was raised to the honours of the altar, hailed +as ultimate reality in what is most negative and empirical +in him. His intellectual activity was to become the +principle of reality, which indeed it is in so far as it is +transcendental and, therefore, divine. But the seventeenth +and the eighteenth centuries could only know this activity +as far as it is empirical and, therefore, non-divine. Illuminism, +with all its generosity and noble impulses, was unable +to realise what transcends the reason and experience +of every single man. It was to be the lot of Germany and, +above all, Italy to conceive in speculative form the life +of Mind and to realise the natural function of religion +throughout history.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V"> + CHAPTER V + <br> + GIAMBATTISTA VICO + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>In their studies of the Neapolitan philosopher, Croce and +Gentile have done their work so thoroughly that to anyone +approaching the same subject it would be very nearly +impossible to say anything both new and good. The +material here used to illustrate the contribution of Italy’s +most original thinker to modern speculation and practical +life will be drawn from the works of Gentile and Croce.</p> + +<p>Vico is the most Italian of Italy’s thinkers. Yet a close +survey of his ideas reveals in his works, besides the most +Italian of intellectual heritage, the presence of the deepest +and richest tendencies of the modern philosophy of +Europe, be it French, English, or German. He is thus the +best illustration of his own theory. In the man of genius +the most concrete historical determinations blend with +the broadest universality of ideas. But his critics have +usually chosen to look exclusively to either of these +according to their own nationality; and this way of +abstracting from one of his qualities has made him +obscure and baffling.</p> + +<p>While his countrymen lived upon the contribution of +France and England, Vico, to the naturalistic intuition +of atomism, which implies individualism in morals and +politics, opposed the idealistic intuition of history as +the developing process of mankind. To the abstract +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>contemplation of clear ideas that were a matter of mathematical +intuitions and deductions he opposed the self-generated +progress of mankind that goes on creating its +own world. In this he revealed himself as a direct son of +the Italian Humanism and Renaissance, an anachronism, +and the fact was nearly fatal to his fame, as this put him, +as a writer, in a position of great inferiority to Locke or +Descartes. He never deals with the question he had sat +down to treat, because he never realised beforehand +where he was going, and it was only on his way that his +mind became properly fixed on the point that was obscurely +tormenting him. One ought not to read either the +titles or prefaces of his books, for he usually starts on a +traditional and even stale matter. Thus it is that starting +as a good Platonist to write what Michelet took his +Scienza Nuoa to be, that is to say a philosophy of history, +he got stranded in the deepest speculation on the nature +of man’s mind quite in contradiction to the doctrine of +Plato. He had begun by considering the origin of man’s +intellectual activity. The difficulty was great, but he +casually observes that whatever the difficulty of the +problem and its obscurity, one always has the steady +light of the conviction that <i>the world of the Gentile nations +is the achievement of men; and that the principles of it must +be found in the nature of our human mind and in the force +of our understanding</i>.</p> + +<p>Such proclamation of man’s power to create his own +world, the only historical world, was indeed a revolution +and Rousseau’s theories, evolved to ensure the liberty of +man to arrange society to suit his requirements, are +childish compared to this sublime thought of a man who +was a Catholic with all the humility and simplicity of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>child. The qualities of the historian were in him balanced +by those of the jurist and through the researches that were +meant to give a philosophy of history he went on building +a philosophy of Mind. But before starting to expound the +forms of Mind’s activity, for which he claimed the right +of historical citizenship, it may be good to note that +Vico’s criticism or continuation of previous systems was +simply dialectical; inasmuch as he contradicted the main +thesis of his favourite authors just as well as those of +Descartes, who was his pet aversion, or accepted them to +transform them. For instance, he took the Cartesian +certitude and opposed it to truth; calling certain that +which is the result of particularising knowledge if one may +term it so, or of knowledge directed to the particular. +And he took the nature of man as Grotius or Hobbes had +misunderstood it, a kind of mechanism the laws of which +were as fatally unalterable as the instinct of beasts, and +changed it into the nature of Mind, quite spiritual and—there +is no other word—Christian.</p> + +<p>Vico turned to the periods of history which were the +most remote from the psychology of his time. Consequently +he was led to study the inferior forms of mind +such as imagination, violence, simplicity; whereas others +had meditated only upon the nature of man as they found +him refined by Religion and laws, and had grounded their +theories on his mature intellect. They ignored the +imagination of his youth. They studied his will morally +trained and overlooked the wild passions of his forefathers. +It is, therefore, legitimate to say that Vico came to reject +the basis of man’s natural rights grounded as they were on +a false notion of human nature; and gave concrete ground +for the assertion of man’s spiritual rights and duties.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p> + +<p>Art, or as he calls it, poetry, is not born through the +caprice of man to give pleasure or clothe philosophic sayings. +It was born out of natural necessity, it is in short +the first operation of man’s mind. Man, before he can +conceive a notion, such as table or dog, realises them with +an operation not of the intellect, but of his imagination. +Before he can reflect with a pure mind, he perceives with +emotion. Before he can speak in prose he speaks in verses. +The nearer poetry gets to the particular, the better it is; +the higher reflection rises towards the universal the more +perfect it is. Yet if one can say that the poet is the sense of +mankind and philosophy its intellect, one’s conclusion +coincides with the saying of Scholasticism, <i>Nihil est in +intellectu qui prius non fuerit in sensu</i>, since without poetry +it is impossible to have philosophy and civilisation. After +many views on the subject, often contradictory, his real +idea is undoubtedly that the first form of mind is poetry, +anterior to the intellect and free from reflection and +reason. Myths, he holds, do not refer inevitably to real +men, they are essentially historical truth under the form +it is wont to take in primitive minds. Any myth is an +individual, as Hercules, and accomplishes individual +actions—as he kills the Hydra or cleanses the stables—but +it is also a concept, the notion of useful and glorious +activity. It is, therefore, both a universal as the expression +of a concept and a creation of man’s imagination as a +particular fancy.</p> + +<p>Passing to morality and to society, although he reacted +against rationalism, Vico’s assertion of the irrational has +nothing to do with Rousseau’s. He took for his ground +history, literature, archæology and above all, law. Thus +his first discovery led him to substitute for the Golden +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>Age that had been postulated as the initial stage of mankind, +“the natural state of man,” an obscure period in +which man did not differ much from the wild beasts and +was at best an irrational and non-intellectual being. He +was to develop the great and immortal notion that lay +hidden at the core of “jus naturalism,” the notion of +society as immanent in man, which had been in the air +since Thomas Aquinas had spoken of it as of a sixth sense +of man.</p> + +<p>Utilitarianism is the first target on which Vico opens +fire, and he takes it as Hobbes and Spinoza had formulated +it. Utility cannot be a sufficient ground for morals since +it springs from the temporal part of man whilst morals are +grounded on his eternal part. No principle of utilitarianism, +whatever the forms ascribed to it by philosophers, +can justify the process of differentiation, which is the +constant development of social organisations. Deceit, +force, need, imply as already in existence the society they +are supposed to have produced. How could the supposedly +happy and simple first owners of the soil be deceived into +giving up their claims, if they had no desire whatever and +no relation of any kind. For relations imply some kind +of social state even if tacitly agreed upon. As to force, the +first rulers were not merely strong in their individual +force; their power had a far deeper root as they invariably +appear at first as protectors of the weak and as antagonists +of all anti-social and destructive tendencies; and their law +was force indeed, but force <i>a natura præstantiori dictata</i>. +The real ground of society is, therefore, moral, and as such +essentially spiritual.</p> + +<p>Yet at first sight Vico’s view of the origin of law and +society appears very much akin to that of “jus naturalism”; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>but as soon as it is understood that Vico’s notion +of man’s nature is the Christian or spiritual one, then the +difference is quite evident. Law to him is natural to man +because what is not natural can neither stay nor last. Fear +is certainly the origin of society; not, however, the mere +fear of wild beasts or hunger but the fear of oneself; fear +of solitude due to remorse and shame. Out of shame Vico +sees arising the senses of honour, fidelity, probity, trust +in promises, truth in words, honesty in deeds. So that +society comes to have moral consciousness for its ground, +and one can indeed consider society as the realisation of +man’s best nature, of man’s spiritual conscience. This +sense of shame or modesty could be called by empiricism +the sense common to all men that enables them to realise +without judgment what is necessary or useful to men. +It is through this sense of decency or shame that the moral +consciousness is enabled to embody itself in institutions +and give stability and certitude to the freewill of man +which is of its nature most uncertain.</p> + +<p>The nature of this fear, manifesting itself in remorse or +shame, of this sense of decency giving rise to moral +consciousness, is easy for us to understand on account +of the systematic treatment Mind has received in subsequent +studies, above all in the works of Croce and Gentile. +This fear is what we usually call self-consciousness; and +when we say that a child has grown self-conscious we +mean that he thinks too much of the opinion of the people +who surround him. Now in this case common language, +as in many instances, lays a trap for our understanding, +since at first sight it seems to imply that the +child’s uneasiness of manners is due to a self-centred conception +of himself; whereas it is in fact his realising the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>importance of his surroundings that makes him wish to +please his elders, to attract their notice, or to appease their +indignation when he feels guilty. It is, therefore, the consciousness +of the non-self that we term self-consciousness. +But this trap is easily avoided, for philosophy knows nowadays +that it is impossible to reach self-consciousness +except through the conscience of that which we are not, +for <i>We</i> without the rest of the world in opposition to which +we are <i>We</i>, means nothing at all. Thus the self-awe in +which Vico sees the first origin of society is the consciousness +man has of his not-self, of the exterior world, or, to use +an image, of the immense shadow that surrounds him and +is in reality his own negativity, all that which he is not. So +that if man knows shame and remorse in the most absolute +solitude it is because in his own heart he feels the presence +of a nameless Power.</p> + +<p>Vico’s is not a speculative hypothesis. Primitive men +wandered savage and ferocious, without family ties or +matrimonial bonds, were the prey of the wildest passions. +Whence could they receive the law that would prevent +their mutual destruction? They cannot be saved by the +wisdom of men since human wisdom does not exist as +yet, neither by God, He has retired among His chosen +people and left to its fate the rest of mankind. But He +has left them the character of men and their humanity is +sufficient to save them. Thunder strikes them with fear, +and the consciousness of their impotency, of their own +limitation, suggests the confused and obscure notion of +that which is not limited. And to appease the Almightiness +of this infinite and enjoy its favour they refrain from +some things and do others. They refrain from satisfying +some of their physical cravings and Mind’s liberty is the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>result; so that liberty is born with her twin sister, moral +law, out of the fear of God, out of the awe-inspiring consciousness +of the not-self. The land becomes covered with +altars; the caves behold the union of men and women +eager to ensure the Divine favour to their nuptials; the +soil is broken to receive the body of the dead who return +to the gods. Ethics are born with the three fundamental +institutions of society, the cult of the Deity, matrimony as +the first call of society, the veneration of the dead as the +first assertion of immortality.</p> + +<p>Why has Croce been able to state, after this energetic +assertion of Vico on the essentially religious origin of +society, that the father of the philosophy of Mind agrees +with the school of natural law in their purely immanent +notion of ethics? Because like them he constructs his +science of society independently of revelation. The +natural law of the Gentile nation spontaneously created by +men is the matter of his research not the supernatural +law that came down on Sinai for the benefit of the Chosen +People. It is not on the idea of law and its origin that he +criticised Grotius, Pufendorf, and the rest, it is their idea +of religion that is distinctly quite alien to his.</p> + +<p>Religion for Vico can be understood first as a conception +of reality as such; and this is the reason why it is in +Gentile’s theories one of the essential moments of Mind as +recognition of the not-self, or object. Second, it belongs to +practical reality as the basis of ethics. In this case religion +is the very essence of ethics as it is the very essence of +truth.</p> + +<p>It is, therefore, evident that what Vico intuitively, perhaps, +unconsciously, is striving to assert is the eternity +of religion, historically proved apart from any revelation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span>Thus in his search for the ground of morality he can +abstract from positive religion, but how could he abstract +from the knowledge of truth, or more than knowledge, the +consciousness of truth? Plutarch, after describing the +primitive religions and their horrors, wonders if it would +not have been better not to have had any religion than to +worship the gods in such impious ways. And Vico, after +quoting him, observes that surely when he wrote this he +must have lost sight of the fact that from such atrocious +superstitions luminous civilisation developed in due time, +whereas nothing ever grew on atheism. There is no such +thing as historical or social life without a religion, full +either of tenderness or ferocity, rational or fantastic, but +in any case providing man with the idea, more or less clear, +more or less noble, that there is something which transcends +the individual, in which all individuals weld into +one, and which provides man’s morality with the object +of his moral will, and thereby means Law.</p> + +<p>In his understanding of the period in which man had +been a brute, Vico was much nearer to the Bible than the +Protestants had been. He accepted as a matter of fact +the distinction between the Gentiles and the Jews, as +implying the radical privation of any supernatural help +bestowed on the former, and he thought of them as being +in a pre-moral state, a state that was indeed devoid of +morality, but full of moral tendencies, and from which +mankind emerged through the realisation of those tendencies. +Such realisation is not on the other hand the effect +of a Divine grace, it is <span class="allsmcap">NATURAL</span>, due merely to the development +of the natural light granted to every man that comes +to life. Man’s free will is weak and between passions and +virtue might succumb if he was not upheld in his efforts +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>by Providence. For Vico makes an absolute distinction +between the grace of God and Providence. The grace of +God, in which he firmly believed, is an extraordinary help +granted to some men and particularly to the Chosen +People; Providence is the ordinary help of God granted to +all men as their birthright so to speak, as inherent in their +nature as men.</p> + +<p>Vico stood henceforth as the best antidote to the +dangerous side of Anglo-French speculation. The philosophy +of Mind had yet to be developed, but it was sufficiently +asserted to claim man and all his activities as belonging +to spiritual reality, to historical reality. Thus what Vico +called Providence provided the ground for a more human, +that is to say, more spiritual, idea of liberty, just when +the men who were going to popularise Illuminism were +preparing for their task. But his was a far more difficult +idea, and less palatable as well, for his liberty springing +as it does from Religion, hand in hand with morality, is +a double-faced divinity. One never can, according to +such a conception of life, grasp liberty without law, or +enjoy a right without satisfying the corresponding duty.</p> + +<p>Passing from religion to law, Vico in his objective +understanding of history rejects a justice that should +consist in measuring everything, for says he, first this +would not be the philosophy but the mathematics of law; +then it is the duty of men to share the common goods in +such a way as to preserve the differences required by the +differences of deserts, and thus to maintain that which is +the only true equality of men. The natural law, according +to him, was born at first under the form of just desires, +just violences; then it took the form of moral fables; +ultimately it was asserted in all its rationality and generosity. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>Away goes with this the abstract and anti-historic +notion of an eternal and natural law, superior to positive +laws. Vico goes on bowing to the <i>jus naturale philosophorum</i> +but instead of putting it high above history, he +looks for it exclusively where it can be found—that is +to say in history, making it thus historical.</p> + +<p>After accepting Plato’s idea of an eternal Republic, +Vico breaks it to pieces to come out with a quite different +conception of his own. The only really eternal Republic +is the eternal process of history in all the variety and +succession of its modes of realisation, from the man-brute +down to Plato. Every single truth has its practical manifestation, +its practical consequences; to think in this or +that way implies living and acting in this or that way. The +divorce of theory and practice resulting from the difficulties +that arose a century before between scientific men +and their churches is here absolutely annulled.</p> + +<p>Vico calls men to realise that in the human world of +history, the only one real to man, since it is the work of +man as Nature is the work of God, thought and action go +hand in hand. Theories bring inevitably a modification of +practical life. Man does not exist, at least not to our knowledge, +as an individual devoid of a social and therefore +historical frame. Art is the moment in which man moves +in a self-centred world, abstracting from the universal, and +is therefore the subjective moment of liberty, the moment +of intuition. Religion is the moment in which man stands +full of awe in front of the world which is his not-self, +abstracting from the individual he is, and is therefore the +objective moment of Law, the one link from the intuitive +to the rational realisation of life as morality and, therefore, +society. History, however, never shows the one apart +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>from the other, as nature never shows one of two correlative +terms absolutely apart from the other. Light or +darkness may be prevalent, both are always there. +Liberty and law have alternately held their sway over +our modern, that is to say Christian world, and their +synthesis may now be called into being by the grandsons +of Vico. His theories could not be understood by the +general public before practical life had shown the soundness +of his criticism of the theories that were fostering the +abstract individualism and liberty against which Fascism +is reacting; and reacting through not a retrograde process, +but through a forward movement which shall enforce +liberty as the correlative term of law, and allow religion to +discharge its function as the essential basis of man’s +spiritual life and not as an instrument of politics.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI"> + CHAPTER VI + <br> + ILLUMINISM IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The characteristic that distinguishes English Illuminism +is the reasonable adaptation of its theories to practical +circumstances; this is best illustrated in the greatest man +it has produced. Locke was for the preservation of faith +in Revelation and tried to make it agree with reason. It +was as impossible for him as for Thomas Aquinas to think +that God’s world should mean anything in contradiction +with the natural light He has granted to man. He sees in +the Scriptures the revelation of truths which would have +been out of reach of man’s natural powers, limited as they +were to sense knowledge. Such a view was characteristic +of the fair-mindedness of the practical and political man, +but it held a snare in the sanction thus granted to the most +unphilosophical and unhistorical notion of Deism and +natural religion. The fact is that the most energetic +champion of Subjectivism after Descartes could not realise +at all the religious position of man towards the Divinity +which is assertive of objectivism. His ethics take human +felicity as the higher aim of theoretical and practical +activity, which is not original at all, but has the merit +of being quite consistent with his subjective assertions. +In his contribution to pedagogy the commonsense of the +practical man comes to temper the theoretical individualism +which inspired him and he thus keeps generally on a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>level above the theory afterwards formulated by Rousseau. +But nowhere does this inconsistency of his practical +application with his main system appear as clearly as in +his work on the State.</p> + +<p>William of Orange stands to Locke as Cromwell does +to Hobbes, not that the king can be compared to the +dictator, but his reign beheld the inauguration of the +political system which is the greatest gift of England to +mankind; and this practical manifestation of the political +genius of that country shows by its coincidence with its +greatest theoretical contribution to philosophy how little +practice and theory are severed in actual life, that is to say +in history. Yet Locke was enforcing the distinction with +all his might to avoid the inconsistency already noticed between +the theoretical and practical aspects of his work. +As Hobbes had done before him in England, and Grotius +in Holland, he saw the basis of the State in a contract, +but he was the first (although Algernon Sydney had prepared +public opinion for such an idea) to assert that the +collective will was embodied not in any single person, but +in the majority of the people. There he was perfectly +consistent with his gnoseology, the multiplicity of the data +of sense knowledge destroyed the unity of the metaphysical +conception. Only legislation, however, fell to the +share of the majority; the executive and foreign policy +were to be entrusted to hereditary monarchs. The exigencies +of the new notions of liberty and equality of man +were tempered by the practical necessity of insuring the +continuity and unity of national development, which was +the last assertion of historical necessities. Hence politics +went on gradually losing touch with historical consciousness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span></p> + +<p>Yet the necessity under which Locke and the best +thinkers of English Illuminism were of tempering their +theories through practical considerations was symptomatic +of the fundamental weakness of the whole system. +Theories springing from a synthetic conception of life +do not want readjusting to practical life, do not want a +period of assimilation under their theoretical form and +another of elaboration into practical systems. The best +example of this is the simultaneous production of Gentile’s +most important theoretical work known to the English-speaking +scholars as the <i>Pure Act</i> and of its practical +offspring the <i>Fondamenti della Filosofia del Diritto</i>, both +of 1916, followed at five years’ distance by their political +application by the Fascists who had, so to speak, no direct +knowledge of such works; to say nothing of his pedagogy, +the application of which the author has had the opportunity +of carrying out with her own pupils. But then such +theories are conceived without abstracting one minute +from practical life, and their basis is history and society as +they are in real life. Of Fascism the same may be said; +its idealism does not prevent it from being the most +thoroughly practical and realistic of movements.</p> + +<p>The philosophy of the seventeenth century had, however, +made this consistency of theory and practice an obviously +unrealisable chimera for the men of the eighteenth century, +and whilst French rationalism brought people to think of +rational theories as capable of radically reforming society, +English empiricism held that ideas may work very well in +theory and very badly in practice. Such a distinction was +the source of great difficulties. If thought and action were +the terms of an irreductible dualism it was natural to say</p> + +<blockquote> +<p>Meliora video; deteriora sequor.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span></p> + +<p>Indeed, the moral imperative of Kant could not be reached +on such ground and in the literature and philosophy of the +eighteenth century moral treatises and dissertations take +such a place that there is no doubt as to the men of the +period realising the difficulties of the problem. They had +separated religion from philosophy, religion from law and +politics, and as they had the <i>jus naturale</i> they must have +natural morals. A sense of right and wrong due to the +natural light granted to man by God was to be found in +Scholasticism as the natural tendency to sociability +already mentioned. It could, in fact, be traced to the +Stoic school and even farther back. But this did not make +things easier to the people who held positive religions to +be useless, whilst on the other hand they were ready to +admit their value as establishments providing for the +moral care of the lower classes. In their abstention from +history, the only use of churches they could see was to +curb the egoistical tendencies of man in the classes which +were denied the enlightenment that could provide educated +people with principles of discrimination between +right and wrong. They could not realise that this function +of the churches is merely a consequence of the position of +the believer towards his divinity, that such a position +brings man to realise what is to him not-self, thereby +giving to the moral law the objectivity which alone can +free it from the constant alteration of selfish motives, +and bestow the stability necessary to its efficiency.</p> + +<p>A natural sense of right and wrong was acknowledged in +order to find in Man himself an explanation of his moral +life. This original predisposition, that was to ensure +autonomy to man’s higher life having been admitted, the +psychological mentality of the time did not hesitate to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>make it a matter of psychology to determine which was +the organ of this natural function of man. Whilst such +researches proceeded, Cumberland having already illustrated +the Ciceronian doctrine of the <i>lex naturae</i> as the +natural reaction of altruistic tendencies against the selfish +motives of Hobbes’s theory, the Earl of Shaftesbury, a +friend of Locke, contributed the best of all these theories. +He claimed the autonomy of morals, freeing it no less +from physiological than from theological fetters. For +the intrinsic value of morals is equally destroyed whether +you make good deeds dependent of the fear of punishment +and hope of reward or on the mechanism of nature. +Goodness, righteousness, and virtue are real of themselves, +a reality; they can be conceived and understood; they +cannot be inferred from anything else. Why he did not +work out so original a notion is easily understood; the +philosophy of his time afforded him little more than +psychology, and his personal gifts and breeding fitted him +rather for æsthetics than for so arduous a task; hence +it was perfectly natural that his idea should have developed +into a real eudemonism. The nature of virtue is +to him harmony, he thus blends the conclusions of +materialism and of the doctrine which upheld the social +instinct of man; the supremacy was to be ascribed to the +egoistic motives by the school of Hobbes, to the sense of +altruism by the others. To Shaftesbury each of these +schools held half of the truth and only the combination of +both tendencies could produce in their harmony real +morality. Neither lax nor ascetic morals must result from +the harmonious combination of the two opposites. Such +a theory implies the perfection of the individual as the +ultimate end of all intellectual life; it throws light on the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>nobler side of Illuminism, and if it is not theoretically +sound it is the blending of all that was best in a movement +that was generous in its optimism.</p> + +<p>The variety of the grounds which were ascribed to +morality is sufficient to betray the original flaw of such +philosophy. Even Lord Shaftesbury had been unfaithful +to Locke, mainly owing to his own strong sense of the +æsthetic, but also owing to the unsuitability of the great +philosopher’s doctrine, as it was understood then, as a +basis for a theory of ethics. Thus Utilitarianism came into +being. “The best for the greatest number,” was to remain +as the ideal or ideology of Illuminism; and the best +in question became more and more the material best, and +less and less the moral best. After the natural sense of +sociability which had taken the place of the will of God at +the basis of the state, after the natural sense of right and +wrong which had been elaborated as a substitute for the +Decalogue, very little was left of the <i>tabula rasa</i> idea of +man’s soul upheld by Locke. All these natural senses were +anterior to experience and when natural religion was +added to them it was understood that all these innate +faculties were constitutive of rationalness in practical life; +and Nature was gradually opposed to history as rational +to irrational.</p> + +<p>This natural religiousness had had its first English +assertor in Herbert of Cherbury. To him man’s soul is +far from being <i>tabula rasa</i>; it is a book that opens +naturally and displays its hidden treasure. And John +Toland, in his efforts to retrieve free thinking from the +interference of the State, determines the limitation of the +state’s jurisdiction, to which the citizen’s <i>actions</i> must be +subject but never his <i>opinions</i>; whilst he limited his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>request for tolerance for the benefit of that class of men +whose social position enabled them to afford a sufficient +culture to make a harmless use of such liberty. Then the +negativeness of any liberal government was obvious, since +in Toland’s notion of it it became like a simple set of +brakes destined to act when the machine goes wrong and +to keep the serene impossibility of an impeccable butler +until order and peace are actually broken. Thus again the +radical difference between educated and uneducated which +had been fostered by the cultural movement of Humanism +and Renaissance, assumed a religious and political significance +which made the new idea of class a greater +impediment to the self-making man than that of the +feudal hierarchy which had always admitted the admission +to knighthood of a valorous man whatever his condition. +This cautious exclusion of the people from the new intellectual +religion was a condemnation; the rational cult +proved an artificial theory and could have no vitality. +Yet it would be a perversion of facts to present it as due +to the personal feeling of Toland or any other man. It +was the consequence both of the predominance of Rational +Reality in the systems then in honour, and of the traditional +Humanism according to which there was the same +difference between a scholar and a non-scholar as there +had been once between the citizen and the non-citizen of +the old pagan world. But the main feature is the anti-historical +vision of life that made men incapable of suspecting +first the social origin of the religious notions +which had flourished from pre-historic time, then the impossibility +of introducing social partitions in the life of the +Mind. Of religion they only saw its practical organisation +in the different churches; of the need from which the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>pre-Christian forms of religion had sprung they had not +the slightest suspicion.</p> + +<p>The rough and obscure notion they had of the Middle +Ages was too often identified with religion and they had no +possibility of realising the part played by the Church to +keep the objectivity of a religious creed as a counterpoise +to the anarchy-breeding self-assertion of man. +Christianity had revealed the profound humanity, that is +to say spirituality, of the world, and Man, feeling himself +to be the main agent of God in the world, realised his +subjective importance. Only God had remained above him—only +the notion of God’s presence could enforce objective +law. It is not the Decalogue and the Church’s precepts +which are meant here. It is the recognition, essential to +religion, of a reality existing besides his own self that compels +man to realise such objectivity of law. St. Paul laid +an emphatic stress on the fact. But the <i>caritas sibi</i> is +that which raises the subject, raises us and enlarges our +capacity until we are capable of taking in the object, all +that we are not, the world in short; what modern +philosophy calls the not-self. When man does realise this +objectivity, this distinction of the world from him, his +attitude is that of respect not only towards God but towards +the world. Thus we have the religiousness, that +Fascism is striving to enforce until it will pervade the +whole of life, practical and theoretical life, since it does +not part them. This notion of religiousness, however, is +ultra-modern, and could not have been conceived in +pre-Kantian days, in pre-Hegelian, pre-Gentilian days. It +is not mediæval by any means, and Illuminism is one +of the stages through which Mind has had to pass, to +realise a subject capable of taking in the object without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>going back to Pagan objectivism. For this objective +world must at all cost be such through subjective objectivity. +If it is to remain a Christian world in its very +objectivity it must remain a human world, the world of +man, the world of the subject whose religious recognition +of his not-self is a supreme self-assertion.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Before the end of the century Reason fell from her +enthroned glory, and sentiment was glorified as the +purest activity of man’s soul. So that the century of light +ended by raising the less rational motives of man’s +life to semi-divine honours. This reaction was due to the +unilateral dogmatism assumed by philosophy in France +owing to the political circumstances of the country.</p> + +<p>With a democratic sense that is partly due to the +democratic origin of the French monarchy, which to be +absolute, had to rest on the support of the people, the +thinkers of France did not dream of keeping their conclusions +to themselves. What they considered true should +be public. Perhaps, in their feeling that it is the duty of +the man of science to communicate to the people the +result of his studies, they hid the most beautiful motive +of the whole century—one that is not brought out by the +historians of philosophy—the imperative exigency of +Truth that impels divulgation. It is frequently remarked +that they were the real champions of Illuminism inasmuch +as they claimed the right of the people to be enlightened; +the idea of Truth which prompted such a claim is the loftiest +part of their contribution to philosophy.</p> + +<p>The French mathematical mentality, after having +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>exported Descartes, had imported Newton, and as Hobbes +and, before him, Bacon, had come to France to find the +yeast they needed to develop their own theories, so now +men like Voltaire and Rousseau made their leaven out +of Locke’s and Hume’s doctrines and studied the political +institutions of England. In France, from Montaigne, from +Pascal, men had learned the cautious prudence, and +the self-dedication to the object of faith that are nearly +antithetic and usually never appear together Montaigne’s +influence is due to the fact that he reflects the state of +mind of all the western world, tired of religious struggles +and the emphatic expressions of dogmatism on all sides; +it was due also to his charming style and the purity of his +French mind. So French is he, so much a man of the West, +that his charm is felt alike by French and Anglo-Saxon +minds. One cannot resist him. In his analytic scepticism +he is so logically methodic, that his style is like the colour +of a piece of antique bronze, inviting the onlooker to touch +it whilst its lines, its lights and shadows reveal the +powerful mind of the sculptor. Montaigne through his very +respect for the Church helped to ruin the religious spirit +of his countrymen, and the genius of Pascal could not +have made up for it, even if its mysticism and its +repugnance for the <i>Moi haissable</i> had not been tinged +as they were by the self-assertive spirit of his time. +Both mysticism and scepticism take their practical form +in Pierre Bayle.</p> + +<p>Few men ever enjoyed the gift of sympathy with which +he was endowed because few men are so superlatively +sincere. He does not renounce religion, he is indeed quite +a religious man, but his religion is negative on account of +his mysticism as a believer and of his scepticism as a +scientist. To him the Thomist and Lockian point of view of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>the super-rationality of the Revelation is an illusion. In +perfect sincerity he could say <i>credo quia absurdum</i>, and +like Tertullian proclaim definitely the divorce of science +from religion, of rationality from irrationality.</p> + +<p>His next move was to divorce morality from religion. +Men could be excellent in Pagan times and they can be +wicked in Christian times, yet Christianity is superior +to Paganism; obviously religious opinions are independent +of the morality of men.</p> + +<p>He then passed to politics. His idea of religion was far +too high to allow him to consider it as an auxiliary of +the state’s police as English theorists had often done, and +since it had nothing to do with morals the Church could +have nothing to do with man as a citizen. This evidently +made not only for tolerance, but for indifference on the +part of the state in all religious matters.</p> + +<p>Expelled from science, morality, and politics, religion +was thus as good as expelled from life by a mystic simply +because he had the sincerity and coherency to be practically +consistent with the theoretical ground of the philosophy +of the time.</p> + +<p>Voltaire overshadows the century as Louis XIV had +done the preceding one. His greatness does not depend on +his contribution to philosophy, but on his immense +efficiency as a propagandist of the conclusions reached by +philosophy. Like all the great and best men of Illuminism he +was absorbed in the moral and religious problem and had +most obviously assimilated the best English theories. +Less sincere than Bayle, he took up his sceptical conclusions, +without, however, sharing his mysticism, and +in the prose of the greatest French writer of the century, +he set to work to popularise the destructive criticisms of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>all dogmas. Voltaire may have been convinced that dogmas +were harmful, but as he did not bring forward anything +to put in their stead his influence was negative. +What it would have been without the constant recall to +present experience of English empiricism cannot be +gauged; as it was, present experience was rather an +incentive to dissolve and destroy the whole social order +than to build; and towards past experiences there could +be no recall whatsoever, or rather there was only one and +an original one, but it could not be heard.</p> + +<p>To Voltaire history offered no direct lesson. His belief in +the supremacy of reason could only bring him to despise +the incoherency of historical facts through which very often +the rationality of history displays itself. His clearness of +sight limited his outlook to the present, and this focussing +of life was an abstraction which prevented him from +realising the historical forces at play in the political and +social circumstances of his country. His religiousness is +strongly tinged with utilitarianism, as he held, like many +Englishmen had done, that the purpose of Churches was to +act as moral check to the lower class. All these fathers of +Liberalism and Radicalism are more aristocrats than +democrats. Their worship of culture and reason makes for +political tyranny and a social system of caste as distinct +as that of the Indians. Hence it evoked a reaction, and +this found its spokesman in Jean Jacques Rousseau. +People were tired of dry reason and its negativeness, they +felt parched and longed for affirmative works; he came +out, a man of genius, devoid of the mathematical and +classical grounding of the others; entirely led by feelings +and, alternately, by the most generous and lowest impulses +he was a democrat.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p> + +<p>Until Rousseau appeared the writers on political +matters had been either followers of the <i>jus naturalism</i> or +of the constitutionalist schools.</p> + +<p>In Rousseau two streams mingle their waters, for he is +an artist as well as the most original thinker France had +after Bayle. As an artist he is the spokesman of his generation, +and it is as such that his contemporaries took to him +as they did in spite of his disreputable personal life. As +a thinker, although the statement may sound very daring, +he ought to share with Berkeley and Hume the honour of +being considered as one who made the way for Kant. +His were mere intuitions; they could not be more as he +had no scientific or philosophic training. But as Professor +Saitta has pointed out, his reaction against rationalism +transcends very much what was grasped by most of +his readers and even sometimes by recent critics. His +passionate claim for the important part played by sentiment +in the life of man and by all irrational forces, original +though it is, is the impulsive reaction of an artist, whereas +by the time he wrote, Italy had already had for some +quarter of a century the works of a man who had claimed, +with a speculative genius far superior to his, the acknowledgment +of all the different activities of mind. And +Giambattista Vico had been a jurist and an historian as +well as a philosopher. So that his notion of Man was +capable of taking in, not only his rational activity, or his +sense relation to the exterior world, or his sentimental +life, or his religious position, as rationalism, empiricism, +sensism and mysticism had respectively done; but the +whole range of man’s spiritual manifestations. Therefore, +is it that Rousseau’s greatest intuitions are those that +could not affect Italy in a speculative way. The man who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>was to pick them up was a German whose genius had all +the robustness of his country at that stage, coming as it +was to the fore after having fed on the intellectual production +of Italy, France and England.</p> + +<p>What affected Italian thought most was the weakest +part of Rousseau. The idea to which he owed his immediate +fame is that nature made man happy and good, but +that society had made him bad and unhappy. He was +thereby contradicting rationalism and empiricism, he was +flinging his glove in the face of all Illuminism. And he +could do it not on philosophical ground, but merely calling +upon life to justify his assertion. That age of light was an +age of corruption and misery. The lack of religion had +brought in its trail the lack of seriousness; the abstract +subjectivism of a century had made of each man a self-centred +world. Liberty was, so to speak, constantly cried +for out of tune since it could not be accompanied by the +assertion of law. For all that the Jus-naturalists and +Constitutionalists had admitted the liberty of men to +make a contract and give themselves the form of government +which suited them best; they had denied the citizens +the liberty of declaring such contract lapsed when it +had ceased to satisfy them. As this was due to their +training in a philosophy that considered the world as a +machine, Rousseau had no reason to follow them nor to +see in the state a mechanism subject to laws as inalterable +as those of nature. Therefore he realised the real essence +of liberty as inalienable. It could be transferred, not +alienated. Strong in this sense of liberty Man must fight +all the unnatural edifice of society which, according to +him, is the cause of all immorality through the inequalities +of men it begets.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span></p> + +<p>Once men accepted the notion of Rousseau—that +Nature had made man good and society had made him +bad—it became not only permissible but morally right +to destroy the order of things which had been evolved by +society and to invest man, every single man, with the +consciousness of his sovereignty. Of the two tendencies +which have been compared to two streams, one was the +naturalistic individualism rooted in the thoughts of his +contemporaries and which he expressed merely as an +artist, as the greatest artist of the time; the other was the +idealistic universalism which was personal to him as a +thinker, but that was bound to remain a source of fleeting +intuitions on account of his incapacity to raise it to speculative +consciousness. He roused a powerful echo where +men like Voltaire and the Encyclopædists failed to command +attention; and even his art of writing could not +have provided him with so great a fascination if most of +the ideas and feelings he expressed had not been a living +reality throbbing in the hearts of his readers, even of the +lowest classes. It was the lowest side of his doctrines that +spread amongst the people, the part which appealed to +envy and hatred, two very powerful levers indeed, but of +which Rousseau might not have chosen to make use had +he been able to choose. His insistence on the distinction +between the will of all and the general will tells eloquently +of the intuition he had of transcendental self and of the +ethic essence of the state; but all this comes to nought on +account of his lacking a theoretical ground for such a +notion, and he is obliged to fall back on the intellectual +stock of his time; in spite of his genius, in spite of all +sentimental intuition of a universal will, he is thrown back +on a will which is merely the sum, the numerical sum, of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>the single wills. Thus it is that he gave us the system +which enthrones quantity while it aims at quality.</p> + +<p>His first principle that men are made all alike by +Nature, happy and good, is, as most of the philosophy +against which he was the first to react with the power of +genius, perfectly anti-historical and, therefore, abstract. +When it had received at the hands of Kant and Hegel a +systematic and speculative treatment this principle was +bound to have as necessary consequences Socialism and +Communism. If the nature of man, thus hypothetically +accepted, is as abstract and as unreal as an algebraical +axiom, it was bound to lead to political and economic +hypothesis just as abstract and as unreal. Since history +shows us in the class struggles and individual competitions +the main spring of progress, the condition <i>sine qua non</i> of +all social life, it is impossible even to dream of the elimination +of such class and individual differences. Life would +cease to be dynamic, cease to be a moving process, it +would be static, everything being brought to a standstill, +which is death.</p> + +<p>To look at real life, to turn away from atomistic individualism +towards a subjectivism capable of comprehending +all the objective world in order to realise finally +what should be the Christian world which must be <i>Liberty +and Law</i>, another century and a half was needed. Now +we can look back to Rousseau and detect in him the obscure +foreshadowing of the school of thought which was to +redeem in the face of reason the irrational activities of +Mind, not as the handmaids of reason but in their full +autonomy and necessity. Mind is no longer pure reason, +and philosophy does not exclude but imply religion and +art, the two moments of law and liberty, although such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>distinction of activities does not destroy the vital unity +of man’s conscience. Mankind is no longer the arithmetical +sum of X beings reduced to the same type and value, it +transcends the individual and can be realised as well in the +smaller cell of society which is the family as in the greater +cell which is the country. Consequently, for the abstract +man of Rousseau a Man can be now substituted who +never is Man as Man, but Man in his full reality as son, as +brother, as husband, as father, as worker, as citizen, as +believer, as artist.</p> + +<p>To make this possible, however, a long process was +required, the first stage being Rousseau and the application +of his theories even in their negativity. For to reach +Fascism, which really puts men on the same level, it was +necessary to break through class distinctions as they +existed then, that is to say as static partitions meant to +stay as they were. It was necessary so that power should +slip from the hands of people, who considered it as their +natural birthright, into the hands of those who are actually +fit to hold it. Again such a revolution was necessary so +that a day should come in which neither the aristocracy +nor the proletariat could think of eliminating politically +each other.</p> + +<p>And, as the philosophy of Italy proclaims, ethical +reality is neither of the subject in itself, nor of the object, +but of their actual relation; so Fascism does not allow +class elimination but protects class competition as the +best means of raising the spiritual and economical standard +of the nation.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII"> + CHAPTER VII + <br> + THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>It is not surprising that German philosophy found an +adoptive country in Italy. Most of the speculative notions +of Kant were formulated fourteen years before Kant was +born in Vico’s <i>De Antiquissima Italorum Sapientia</i>, and +Hegel’s most original conception, forty-five years before +Stuttgart had the honour of producing him, was acted +upon in the <i>Scienza Nova</i>. Even if Vico had never been +realised in his totality, people in Italy knew more or less +that such ideas as those of the German philosophers were +in the air and found them easier in Kant than in Vico +since the former had brought them to systematic cogency. +Vico, independent of any knowledge of Leibniz’s theories, +had come to share several of his ideas merely because they +faced the same problems and both had practical and synthetic +speculative minds. Also Vico with his hostility for +rationalism, his sympathy for empiricism and his criticism +of both found himself very nearly in what was to be +Kant’s position. His preparation, which was more legal +and historical and archæological than Kant’s, closed the +way to a clear and precise view; but it was superior in one +sense inasmuch as that preparation provided him with a +richer, a fuller view of reality, thus allowing him to foreshadow +Hegel as well as Kant.</p> + +<p>The greatest man who reacted against Rationalism and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>Empiricism in politics as factors of a sterilising Utilitarianism, +reducing man to the most abject egoism, Mazzini, is an +intuitive genius like Rousseau and like him a son of the eighteenth +century, rising above his generation. But whilst the +one showed little or no sense of history the other saw it as it +really is, animated by ideas and created by the will of men. +One writer had had a very great influence on the great +Genoese, who never knew even as much as his name, +Vincenzo Cuoco. He was what might be called a writer of +political pedagogy, as the problems he faced are always +practical and usually political. The education of which he +was an ardent apostle was the civic education of the +inhabitants of Italy; and like all men whose aim is +practical he sets his ideal in life and not in science. He is +the pedagogue of the first dawn of Italy’s national consciousness +at the time of Napoleon. Born in 1770 in the +Molise he died in Naples in 1823. Among the Neapolitan +Jacobins he stood as an exception in the lack of enthusiasm +with which he viewed the French Revolution. He had +assimilated all the ideas of the French writers, but he +was a student of all social, political and economical problems; +so that it is no wonder that he should have come, +through the influence of F. M. Pagano, to respect Vico +and look askance at the new systems. His fundamental +principle was that human reality is historical reality, that +is to say the reality which is not, but for ever becomes, and +goes on becoming and developing not through extrinsic +causes, but through its own activity, intrinsic and autonomous; +that such activity transcends the single activities +and their historical determination; its source is identified +by him as Divine Providence. Such was the principle from +which moved all Vico’s philosophy, and though Cuoco +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>could not even suspect the speculative value of it, he +realised it practically, and it was to him a luminous +beacon, more than sufficient to enable him to take his +bearings in the political world and make out the right +way to rid Italy of her troubles.</p> + +<p>Thus he could not be satisfied with a French Constitution +because Vico had taught that “governments must +be drawn in conformity with the nature of the men who are +to be governed....” The French Revolution seemed to +him drawn for ideal men who did not exist. According +to him a constitution must conform to the nature of the +people and be produced by the people, through the few +men who are fit to interpret its historical will and realise +its particular requirements. Although Mussolini may not +have read Cuoco’s articles it is greatly to his praise that he +should so perfectly conform to the ideas of this first +follower of Vico. Not that this fact is considered here as +a coincidence—if Mussolini is the genius of Italy which he +is hailed to be, it is but natural that he should realise in +its practical application a theory which is so perfectly +Italian. A constitution cannot be “good for every +nation.” If it is supposed to be, it means it is good for +nobody. Besides it must not be drawn like an abstract +theory established once for all according to a philosophical +notion of what is supposed to be the nature of man, and +as such eternal; it is bound to be always temporary and +historically determined, according to the vices and qualities, +according to the ways and the history of the people.</p> + +<p>In this brief exposition of what were Vincenzo Cuoco’s +most important ideas on politics, we meet constantly +with sentences that might be met from the pen or on the +lips of Mussolini. Censure can do little to reform the moral +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>and political life of man. Feasts and premiums are better +means; and it is more likely that governments will improve +the country by pulling the people to the good rather +than by pushing them away from the bad. This is pure +Fascism. The government must not act as a brake, but +rather as a propeller or a helm. Public virtue must be +nursed, not by diminishing the avidity of the lower +classes, but by showing them the way to satisfy it. <i>The +love of work</i> is the one means of regenerating the lower +classes. A good government must, therefore, destroy the +callings that are unproductive; and to accomplish this +the best way is to make it impossible for people to get as +much money out of them as out of the productive callings. +“Work,” writes Cuoco, just as a Fascist minister might, +“will make us independent of the nations upon which we +depend.” The Love of Man for his country must spring +from self respect; and this, indeed, is as far as one could +go more than a hundred years ago towards the identification +of state and citizen, which is the basis of Fascism, and +has been formulated in its speculative form by Giovanni +Gentile in 1916. If a nation was to be created out of the +patchwork Italy presented on the map it could only be +through the education of the people, for the unification +could only be attained by awakening national consciousness +in the single consciences. Cuoco called this the +formation of an Italian public spirit.</p> + +<p>When this follower of Vico in 1802 reached Milan, +capital of the Cisalpine Republic, Melzi realised his +value and entrusted him with the foundation and direction +of the first <i>Giornale d’Italia</i>. Four articles written in +1804 are probably those read and meditated upon by +Mazzini and are of such a quality that they could be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>written to-day. To the men who did not see the point in +so much zeal for the formation of public spirit he answers +by a most coherent demonstration that political reality +is spiritual reality. The spiritual building up of the +citizen is the real conquest of political autonomy. To +achieve such a task it was necessary to foster the love of +agriculture, and of the militia—compare Mussolini—and +to replace self-love and personal vanity with the love of +the country and national pride. The “City” to Cuoco is +not one thing and the citizens another, the prosperity of +the former depends on the moral and practical efficiency +of the latter. He was full of contempt for the dreamers +who thought that everything may be expected from the +laws. But the men who roused him to real passion were +those who argued that the Army, the navy, commerce, +were cares that should be left to the great nations, to +England and France for instance. To this he objected +that those countries had been small, smaller than the +Italian states, and had grown through the steadiness and +efficiency of their national will. Such efficiency and steadiness +of national will he called “public spirit.” The regions +whose inhabitants did not think of being or becoming a +great country, would never be nations. For the small +states there was one law; either to become great or perish. +It may be timely to observe that this dependence of a +country’s greatness on the conscience and the will of its +citizens was asserted by Mussolini when he was still the +head of the Socialist party in Forli in 1911.</p> + +<p>Again in 1804, reviewing in his <i>Giornale d’Italia</i> a +philosophical work, Cuoco expresses the desire to see +philosophy flourishing in Italy, for the development of +speculative thought was in close relation with the political +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>state of society, and it was important that a nation should +not be theoretically sterile. “It is a long time since we +received it,” he writes, “first from France with the works +of Descartes, then from England with those of Locke. +The periods of political greatness of each nation always +coincide with those of its philosophical greatness. The +first strength is Mind; weak is the arm of those who lack +it or think they do.” Doubtless this is pointing the way to +Gentile’s affirmation of the impossibility of having the +theoretical and practical activities of mind separate from +each other just as the last quotation was pointing to +Mussolini’s policy of “heroicising” the people of his +country through giving them an heroic will and a national +conscience.</p> + +<p>No wonder that Mazzini should have realised what +Rousseau could never see. The ethical nature of what +goes under the name of “Nation” is a Mazzinian concept. +When Hegel speculatively proclaimed this it had been +already intuitively conceived, artistically expressed and +religiously observed by the men to whom Mazzini’s ardent +faith was like an electric current. The Mazzinian articles +of faith were few, and had never been theoretically worked +out. This helped their adoption by people who would never +have grasped the import of a huge system. Whilst +Rosmini and Gioberti were read by the few, Mazzini was +on the lips and throbbed in the hearts of the many, so that +the war he waged against materialism and individualism +was effective. His mystic feeling spreads in young hearts +as easily now as it did then. Lads take to sacrifice far +more easily than men of a more mature age and Mazzini’s +declarations all proclaimed self-sacrifice, self-effacement, +even his idea of liberty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p> + +<p>At the very time in which the Anglo-French idea of +political reality was introduced in Italy, to rouse the +country once more into life with the magic word liberty, +this young man, a poet, an inspired prophet, was ready +with a new meaning for that word. According to Mazzini +the individual is merely the representation we have of our +own self when we look at it as one amongst many and see +it limited to the short span of time between the birth and +the death of its body, whereas the self which can conceive +of liberty, and therefore realise it, is the self everyone of us +feels when in the silent recess of Mind we have a right to +claim, a feeling to express, an intuition to cast into sound +or colour, and a faith through which we link ourselves +to the political, family, artistic and religious reality that +has given us the consciousness of such right or aroused in +us such family, artistic, or religious sense. To him political +liberty could only mean for Italians the liberty of shaking +off foreign rule and creating the nation. It was not and +could not be the liberty to attend one’s private affairs as +one wished, for this last meaning of the word had been +elaborated in his country through Humanism and the +Renaissance, and it was not only obsolete, but was the +cause of Italy’s corruption and decay.</p> + +<p>The idea of empirical and transcendental self, implicit +in this conception of liberty, came to produce the second +article of faith in the Mazzinian doctrine. If man were to +try creating a new natural kingdom and add it to the +animal, vegetable and mineral offered to us by Nature, his +attempt would be a vain endeavour. But political reality +does not belong to the world of Nature but to the world +of Mind, in which man is a Creator, and where nothing is +really impossible to him that believeth. This most Christian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>view of the point frees the nation from natural contingencies +and frees the citizens besides from the lazy excuse that +man must accept the political and economic position of his +country as determined by Nature. Thereby it forbids +any idea of its being static. No one can find at his birth +his nation ready-made for him; everyone must work to +the best of his moral, intellectual, and bodily power to +create it; since the moment the citizens cease to work +at this, their political task, the country starts ceasing to be +a nation and becomes a region whilst the citizens become +inhabitants. The nation is not a geographical unit, it is +not even history empirically understood, but it is history +as far as history is process, development, programme, +mission and sacrifice; in a word, human life.</p> + +<p>In Mazzini’s insistency on the point one detects the +desire to react against the negative side of the mentality +which has been traced as a consequence of Humanism. +The Italians had identified themselves with ancient Rome, +and this had brought them to think of their national glory +and history as a ready-made affair. In their country they +saw the Temple of the past, and exploited their ruins +morally as well as financially. Whilst the other countries +of the western world had been fighting and labouring, for +the conquest of their political and financial status, Italy +had sat on her past glories and proudly wrapping herself +in Cicero’s or Cæsar’s toga had taken tips from the whole +world. Mazzini had grasped enough of Vico’s notion of +man as creator of the historical world to bring to the fore, +in the average man’s mind, the idea that was the import +of all the historical philosophy of Italy and, therefore, +the positive side of his country’s historical mentality.</p> + +<p>Neither Cuoco nor Mazzini were philosophers, their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>task was, so to speak, to realise philosophy, to introduce +other people’s theories into life, and this they did uncommonly +well both of them, although Mazzini played in +the Risorgimento so eminent a part that his gigantic +historical figure overshadows that of Cuoco. But Cuoco, +through his <i>Giornale d’Italia</i> and his subsequent writings +had the greatest influence on the best poets and writers of +the period, to begin with on Foscolo and Manzoni. For +the first time since Savonarola’s days intellectual life in +Italy beheld a spontaneous revival of Catholic thinking, +and this, strong enough since it counted men as great as +Gioberti, Rosmini and Manzoni, was not due to the +initiative of the Church. It was spontaneous, intellectually +so, and Vico may be considered as its forerunner. +What was paramount was perhaps the moral system of +Rosmini. He started out to fight Kant’s moral system +as unfit for use on account of the subjective ground of the +Kantian imperative, and meaning to fight it he developed +it and found new ground for it. The moral, pedagogic and +even pedantic spirit which spread in the intellectual +classes of Italy during the last century has indeed a good +deal in common with the moral movement which had accompanied +in Germany the development of a national +conscience. We have in both cases a reaction against the +foreign ways of the aristocracy—but with a great difference +since in Italy the aristocracy had very little of the +feudal character and was so open to intellectual life that +it responded to the call sooner and better than any other +class—preluding a reaction against the atomistic political +life of the country. To pass from Rosmini and Gioberti +to Croce and Gentile, the thinkers who herald the coming +of Italy as a modern nation, as much was needed as to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>pass from Leibniz, living in the days in which German +intellectual life and national conscience could be at best +the object of a mystical worship, to Kant’s time, when +Europe realised that there were actually such things +as German metaphysics and a German nation.</p> + +<p>In both cases the philosophy has to be, and is, synthetic, +for in both cases the exigency that opens life with the +pungency of need, of deficiency, of negativeness, is the +thirst for national assertion and foreign recognition. +Obviously in both cases also it is the assimilation of +foreign contributions that has enabled the scholars to +realise the negative position of their respective countries.</p> + +<p>After the unfortunate war of ’48–’49, Gioberti went into +exile and philosophy was overtaken according to Prof. +G. de Ruggiero by an invincible drowsiness. Drowsy, +obscure, unconscious of their own positions, are epithets +which can be justly bestowed on the thinkers of the time, +for eclecticism prevails without the historical culture that +alone can make it fertile. And of the most eminent +philosopher of the time the best that can be said is that he +did his best to lull to sleep his countrymen’s newborn +consciousness. Among the Positivists, inferior followers +of foreign tendencies, several remain first-rate historians, +thanks to a few sentences of Vico kept like the seeds in +Noah’s ark, and sufficient to prevent them from falling +into a materialist metaphysic which would have been a +sterilising curse to the newborn nation. Materialism was +far more logical and coherent in France when the historians +simply excluded the ideologies which were left hovering +through the historical works—for instance, of as good +an historian as Villari; but this was not unconscious. +After the efforts which they had made to get rid of pseudo-idealistic +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>metaphysic they did not want to entangle themselves +in another metaphysic, were it to be materialist. +On the other hand, they did not want, or were not able, +to make theirs the position of English positivists. Ardigo, +for instance, although he is the best Italian thinker that +upheld Positivism, cannot be compared to a Spencer or a +Mill.</p> + +<p>But speculative voices are never silenced, although they +may be hushed, and the spiritual exigencies which had +produced Gioberti and Rosmini were slowly working +themselves out in other minds. Neo-Kantianism gave +birth in Italy to a series of historical studies in the field +of philosophy, so that it became impossible for any decent +professor to misrepresent the development of speculative +thought as these two great exponents of Italy’s mind had +done. Whilst Neo-Kantians achieve little theoretically, +they do so much historically that one may say that the +works of such men as Fiorentino, Tocco, and others prepared +the ground for Spaventa and de Sanctis who in +their turn have given us Croce and Gentile. All read +German, English and French, besides Latin and Greek; so +that we can say that the speculative theories of the whole +western world were studied in their schools; and that, +like the child who becomes self-conscious as he gradually +realises the worth and importance of the people surrounding +him, Italy has grown to speculative self-consciousness +through the close study of universal speculation and of the +history of her national political life, national art, national +literature, national speculative theories, until her historians +came to the idea of history as the co-ordination of +all the different branches.</p> + +<p>Bertrando Spaventa taught in the university of Napoli, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>and, a staunch Hegelian, he criticised Hegel in the same +creative way as Vico had criticised Descartes and Locke. +He developed and continued the intuition which is at the +basis of all Hegelian system as Hegel could not have done, +inasmuch as Spaventa realises Hegel’s logic in its historical +position, that is to say as the fulfilment of Descartes’ +claim. Thinking means causing to the French mind, whilst +to Hegel it is not merely causing it is creating. But +Gioberti had not only expressed the Hegelian intuition; +he had completed it; thinking is creating, but to him +proving also is creating. And Spaventa, rich with all the +history of speculative thought, realised Hegel’s logic and +prepared it to enter life, thanks to Gioberti’s contribution, +although Gioberti himself had been far from realising +it. The speculative possibilities of the Cartesian <i>Cogito</i> +are exploited to the full; whereas they had been left +aside by Hegel. Vico’s <i>factum et verum convertuntur</i>, +pragmatically understood by the Positivists, is here realised +as a process. But, as is the wont of Italian thinkers, the +original part of his intuition remains at an intuitive stage +and has to wait for the speculative genius of Gentile to +work it out and modify it into the <i>fieri et verum convertuntur</i> +which is the adequate expression of the historical +dialectic.</p> + +<p>Hegel’s most original and fecund motive was thus nearing +its theoretical realisation at the hands of Spaventa, +whilst Vico’s conception of life was practically illustrated +by Francesco de Sanctis, whose important part in the +shaping out of Italy’s present mentality cannot be overstated. +The process of dissolution of Hegel’s and Vico’s +theories was accomplished and the passage from dissolution +to re-elaboration was done by de Sanctis. In his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span><i>Storia della letteratura Italiana</i> the philosophy of mind +receives more than a perfect illustration, an æsthetic +rendering that makes the most abstruse notion of dialectic +a tangible object of meditation to the average reader. +Æsthetic rendering is here used as excluding anything +like theoretic exposition; and such æsthetic quality is +insured by the great critic’s own gifts as an artist. His +reading and philosophic preparation are incredible, not to +be gauged; they are, however, assimilated by him very +much in the way in which a great artist assimilates his +technique and intellectual experience.</p> + +<p>Doubtless Michelangelo, moving to sketch the ceiling of +the Sistine Chapel or the last panel of it, is carrying in +himself the experience, the artistic experience of eighteen +centuries. Yet he must have forgotten it all, at least as +objective knowledge, to find it in himself flesh of his flesh, +marrow of his bones, soul of his soul; so that he could +move freely as an artist, in all the spontaneity and, therefore, +liberty of creation. The character of his work is +personal, so highly personal that it includes all the determinations +which single out Buonarroti as a man of that +land, of that religion and even of that particular moment of +his religion, of that time, of such and such temperament +and inclination, and singles out the whole of his production +as belonging to that particular moment of the +Italian Renaissance. The greater is the artist’s personality, +the better he discharges his twofold function of microcosm +and macrocosm of his world. It is an illusion of the nineteenth +century to believe that personality in art makes for +atomistic individualism. Just as it is an absurd error of +the people who judge Mussolini and Fascism to believe +that they have grown without roots. They would then be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>superposed to history, superfluous, unnecessary; whereas +the great artist and the great politician belong to life, and +in fact are historical life working itself out to expression +or political realisation.</p> + +<p>The <i>Storia della letteratura Italiana</i>, like an immense +relief, unfurls the development of the life of Mind in Italy +from the dawn of the Italian mentality right up to the +days of the critic. For de Sanctis, Art is Mind individualising +itself through the senses in the transparency of +intuition; Art in other words, is life reaching the luminosity +of form. This blending, this perfectly intimate welding +of reason and sense, of universal and particular is Art. +It is, therefore, individuality, not individuality taken as it +is too often—as the contrary of universality, but as its +realisation in the particular. For this relation of the +universal and particular is constitutive of art, which is, +therefore, neither individual arbitrariness, nor the mere +reflection of life in the artist’s fancy, but life itself coming +through its own development to intuitive transparency. +Life cannot be a matter of which art would be the form; +and religion, politics, science as elements of life are not +alien to art or indifferent to it. None of this element can +exist without art, and history leaves no doubt on the +point—each new religion, new political system, new +scientific progress is not to be parted from the artistic +production of the time.</p> + +<p>De Sanctis, like a medical student, follows step by +step the corruption of Italy, gradually growing with the +decay of religious and political consciousness, above all +when Humanism, having reached its climax in the works of +Poliziano, stopped providing a sincere feeling to the +scholars who ceased to worship antiquity some fifty years +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>after him. De Sanctis was a man of the Risorgimento he +had laboured and suffered for the independence of his +country, hoped and despaired of the future greatness of +his countrymen. He was aware that in spite of Machiavelli, +of Vico, of Alfieri, of Cuoco, of Mazzini, the greatest +number of his countrymen had, so to speak, no souls. +Knowing as he did that religion was the basis of all relation +and the first cause of all real social progress, seeing in it +the keystone of man’s recognition of the exterior world, +he refrained in all his books from attacking not only +religion, but the Church as well; although he was a +staunch anti-clerical in politics until Rome was taken from +the Pope. He drew such a graph of the development of +Italy’s mind that from Dante’s onwards it shows all the +forces of corruption preparing the series of invasions that +made of his countrymen’s shame a byword, and the +forces of reconstruction from Machiavelli onward. To the +reading public he presented it as a mirror, in the transparency +of Art showing the whole spiritual life of the +people with its political consequences. He bade them +realise that corruption had been the cause of foreign rule +and tyranny, not foreign rule and tyranny the cause of +corruption.</p> + +<p>This was new indeed, too new for a generation which +had achieved the political independence of the country +with the belief that bad government and foreign rule were +the cause of the people’s corruption. No wonder, therefore, +that de Sanctis’ masterpiece, published in 1871, +should have been practically laid aside for more than +twenty-five years awaiting Croce and Gentile to take it up. +The public that responded to their call when it came was +exactly the one which de Sanctis would have wished to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>reach. The boys took de Sanctis up, and what is more +curious they took him as their idea-provider; inasmuch as +the big volumes, which could not be included in the +schools’ syllabus, were turned to in the hour of need, when +they had to write essays and found themselves short of +ideas. No method of popularising and assimilation could +match this, for the ideas thus borrowed by the young had +to be exposed, proved and illustrated. The school lads and +university men who enlisted as volunteers in the war, were +mostly spiritual sons of de Sanctis, one of them being +Mussolini, who told the author that he was a worshipper +of that work. In the same way the idea of Croce and +Gentile have spread even among people unfit to realise +their theoretical import. Never, however, could they +spread like those of de Sanctis, but he is so much so completely +their spiritual father that most of their speculative +notions can be found as intuitions in de Sanctis’ pages. +There the boys get so familiar with them that when they +come to a Gentilian theory, and the teacher takes the +trouble to introduce to them the fundamental intuition, +they grasp it at once as a matter of course and wonder +why the teacher should think it so difficult to explain, for +instance, the intimate relation of thought and action, the +necessity of religion and the like.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII"> + CHAPTER VIII + <br> + BENEDETTO CROCE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>one</i> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span></p> + +<p>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 <i>concomitant</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>historical</i> 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 <i>actual truth +about things</i> (since <i>human things are always moving</i>), in +order to govern <i>in harmony with the times</i>.</p> + +<p>This <i>historical</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>becomes, under the name of condition of fact, the ground +of Croce’s conception of the necessity and liberty of man’s +will.</p> + +<p>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 <i>wish</i> to wash them, never +<i>will</i> to do so.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>not to be passed on the result of past actions; historical +judgment must be passed on acts, not on facts.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>that problem, one of those which have always tormented +humanity.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>coacti tamen volunt</i> 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,⁠<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> “that no <i>vultus instantis tyranni</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>unthinkable. The blind will is not will; the true will has +eyes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>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.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Since man’s action, his volition-action, is free, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To him law is a <i>volitional act</i> concerning a <i>class</i> 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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>supreme power</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>which their power vanished, or was reduced to a gesture +of solitary command, not far from being ridiculous.</p> + +<p>Going back to the definition of laws as <i>volitional</i> 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 <i>sword in hand</i>, 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 <i>universal</i>, whereas laws have for object something +<i>general</i>; a <i>class</i>, not a concept. In short moral law, +logical law, or economic law ought to be called principles +instead of laws.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>ipso facto</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>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 <i>bourgeoisie</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>innumerable journalists as well as running on the lips +of the Professors who taught in upper schools and +universities.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>natural</i> or <i>rational</i> 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.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>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.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX"> + CHAPTER IX + <br> + GIOVANNI GENTILE + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>The difference between the philosophies of the two greatest +thinkers now flourishing in Italy is due to the natures +of their minds. Croce always starts from a distinct problem, +from a particular question, and rises to speculative +heights partly through the vigour of his own genius and +partly through his constant intercourse with Gentile, to +whom any particular problem always presents itself from +the outset <i>sub quadam specie Æternitatis</i>. On the other +hand, Gentile starting thus, is led to pursue his researches +on the central problem into all its particular and practical +applications by a sense of reality so strong that he has +been thought to recall Thomas Aquinas, by his vast +erudition not only in the history of philosophy, but in the +whole historical world. Yet, even apart from this, and +from his special interest in all the problems of Law and +pedagogy, the influence of Benedetto Croce always +compels Gentile to keep in touch with actual reality. +Their mutual criticism is perhaps the best example in +philosophical history of the creative power of the critic. +For except in one instance—where Croce insists upon seeing +in his friend’s Actual Idealism the latest form of +mysticism—the critic is always continuing the work which +he is engaged in reviewing and revealing to the author the +germs of truth that lie as yet undeveloped in his theory.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + +<p>The import of Croce’s work is certainly more easily +grasped than Gentile’s ideas as they present themselves +in his theoretical world. Many Italians are acting on these +ideas of Gentile’s who would be unable to formulate them; +and that is the most remarkable thing about them. He +became a professor at the age of twenty-one, exactly +thirty years ago, and as Professor Wildon Carr truly says +in his introduction to his own translation of Gentile’s +Pure Act—which will be here constantly quoted—he has +become famous not only on account of his historical and +philosophical writings, but also by the number and fervour +of the disciples he has attracted. A born teacher, he loves +teaching, and in teaching has acquired much of his knowledge +of mind. He never divorces theory from the concrete +ground of life; and when he addresses people between +17 and 60 years of age he is constantly forcing them +to test in their own actual life the truth of what he is +saying.</p> + +<p>He strongly dislikes the taking of notes; for he does +not want the students to repeat his own words on the day +of their examination. The lectures are only meant to help +them to take their bearings, to enlighten them; they +must read their set books by themselves and interpret +them by their own wits. His words must be taken as an +invitation to think out their own problems for themselves; +he wants to spur them on, not to solve problems for them. +Thousands of schoolmasters are actually following his +pedagogy which so perfectly meets the requirements of +the present generation, that it is admirably acted upon +in the remotest villages and by people whose philosophy +is that of commonsense and good-will. Gentile has produced +not only a system of philosophy, but determined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>a current of spiritual life which partakes both of theory +and practice—blending them perfectly.</p> + +<p>Just as Bruno, Bacon and Descartes opened the era +of subjectivism, individualism and liberty, so now Gentile +opens a new era which is a synthesis of law and liberty +since he postulates the individual as the relation of the +empirical self to the transcendental self, since his subjectivism +becomes concrete and capable of realising the object. +This sounds somewhat abstruse and a few illustrations of +the point at issue may be useful.</p> + +<p>Fuel is not fire, and in order to warm myself, fire is the +thing I need. But the fuel is necessary to the fire. The +fire, indeed, <i>is</i> only so far as it consumes the fuel. Both are +necessary; yet it is the fire which makes the fuel; since +the coal, wood, or charcoal is fuel merely because the fire +can destroy it as such. But the fire does not exist before +it starts to consume the fuel. Now in knowledge the thing +man knows is not knowing, it is known; therefore, the +principle of knowledge is man. But can man know, in the +absence of that which he knows? Obviously not. Shall +we then go back to the old dualism and take man and the +world, the subject and the object, as standing in opposition +again? No; a thing is an object of knowledge because +the subject postulates it as such and is therefore +only in the act by which the subject knows it. The one +single source of <i>spiritual</i> reality is man; but he realises +the world only in so far as he realises himself as a knowing +subject. And just as fire is fire as long as it destroys the +fuel; so man is really man, a spiritual being, a subject as +long as he acts as such. The point is often explained by +practical illustration to quite tiny children, to whom no +one would try to state it, as I have just done, theoretically.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + +<blockquote style="padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;"> +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Why do you come to school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Because my mother sent me (—or—to learn to +read and write.)</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: If you come because your mother sent you, that +is quite right; but until you see for yourself why you +should come to school, you will get very little good out +of it.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: But since I have got to come, I want to learn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And what do you suppose all the others come +for?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Why, sir, to learn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And tell me, what must I do if you are all to +learn?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: I suppose you must teach us.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Well now, what is a school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: This is a school.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: You mean the building?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Yes, of course.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Don’t you think I could teach and you could +learn in a field?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Well, I suppose we could.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Would that be a school? (No answer). It +would. You see the building and the writing over the +door have nothing to do with it. <i>We</i> make the school. +For if to-morrow the authorities were to send us to a +barn and put some poor people here——</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span> (interrupting): Sir, I know, it would be a poorhouse.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And the barn where we went?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: It would be the school.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Right. Then who makes the school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: The teacher and the pupils.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Right. But let us go on talking about the same +case. The authorities say that this place must be given +up to house poor old people. Now I think that a lot +of strong boys like you could carry the benches, blackboard +and so on to the barn.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Of course we could.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And I might say to you: “Come this afternoon, +all of you, and let us do it.”</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Very well, we would come, at least those who live +near.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And we would start teacher and pupils together, +carrying the things.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Yes, sir.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Would that be a school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Of course not, sir.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Then it is not enough to have pupils and +teacher together to make a school.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: No, sir.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: What is missing, then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Why, sir, we carry benches and things, and that +is not a school.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Well, what exactly is a school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: ... I don’t know.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: I’ll tell you. It is my teaching and your learning +that makes a school. Do you see?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Oh, yes.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: But if it is actual teaching and learning that +make a school, what happens if the master is a bad +master and does not actually teach anything?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Well ... I suppose it is not a real school ...</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: It is not a school at all.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: I see.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Now if a boy does not want to learn at all——</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: He is a bad pupil.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: He is not a pupil at all, as long as he persists +in not learning.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Of course he is not.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And if he makes a noise and prevents the others +from learning, what then?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: He oughtn’t, sir.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: I know he oughtn’t. But if he does not see that +he oughtn’t, and goes on doing it, what happens?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: He prevents the others from learning and the +master from teaching.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Very good, and what is the result for the +school, if, as you see, it is the actual teaching and learning +which makes the school?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: It is just as before, when the Master was bad, +it stops being a school.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Now supposing you didn’t mind being punished +rather than keep still, could you start singing or +jumping about just to be funny?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Well, no, not even if I did not mind being sent +out, I couldn’t.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: Do you know why?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Pupil</span>: Because I should spoil your teaching and their +learning.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Master</span>: And you would destroy the school.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>In such a discussion, which may occupy several days or +weeks, the child has obviously learnt some rules of life +derived from highly speculative notions. The reality of +any relation depends on two acts directed towards a common +aim; therefore, the rights of the two parties are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>dependent upon their actual efficiency in the pursuit of +the common aim. A master who does not teach must be +dismissed; a pupil who does not learn loses the right of +being a pupil. Similarly, if a landowner allows the ground +to lie waste, he is not discharging his duties as a landowner +and his rights to his property are not actual. This stands +in complete contrast with the “Rights of Man” which +could assert man’s liberty to use his property as he chose, +the state only calling upon its citizens to pay taxes—and +fight in war, because the state was understood as something +external to the citizens. The relation between employer +and employed is clearly parallel to that between +master and pupil; in it the common aim is to realise as +much profit as possible out of the enterprise. As soon as +one of the parties diminishes the productivity of the enterprise, +he forfeits his right to damage himself, the other +party and the commonwealth. The state, though having +no direct shares in the profit is enriched or impoverished +according to the increased or decreased productivity of +private enterprises.</p> + +<p>In this is stated for the first time since Christ preached +and lived the Gospel, the true equality of men that had +been asserted in it. So thoroughly does Christianity realise +that rights are correlative to duties, that before spiritual +citizenship can be bestowed on a child in most Christian +churches sponsors are required to take a pledge in its +name, and upon its coming to adult state the young +Christian must confirm that pledge and acknowledge the +duties on which its rights depend.⁠<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> This is the reason why +the Roman Catholic Church is at once democratic and +hierarchical. A shepherd can become Pope, an Emperor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>can be deprived of his spiritual citizenship. The view of +citizenship as a birthright is a relic of Paganism when +slavery might be the predestined fate of some and citizenship +of others. Political reality finally becomes spiritual +reality; man is a citizen exactly in so far as he realises +the state, through the act of consciousness by which, +transcending the empirical element in his own will, he +postulates such a will in religious objectivity, thereby +making it law.</p> + +<p>The little boy, in realising that his purpose in going to +school is to learn, transcends everything in his will that +is merely individual or private. His will ceases to be subjective, +it becomes greater than the little boy, it becomes +school life, it becomes objective and transcending the +little boy, it is to him <i>Law</i> in all the majesty and imperativeness +of the term. Again, boys become members of a +football team because they want to play and eventually +win matches. They want this freely and this choice, together +with their individual skill in the game, produces the +team as a unit for the purposes of play. But the team once +formed, the captain chosen for his fitness to command the +team in such a way as to increase its efficiency, and each +member called to perform the part in which he can best +serve the team’s interest, the act of will by which each +member in perfect liberty wants to win a match transcends +itself, become the team’s will, and as such, objective, +sacred, inviolable law. The instances in which members +of a team, disregarding the orders of the captain (in whom +the eleven wills in all their liberty fuse into one and +become law), play to show off their personal skill illustrate +clearly enough by their effect on the score, the inviolableness +of such collective will.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p> + +<p>To realise the full force of this relation between liberty +and law, the state and the citizen, is not easy, if one looks +for it exclusively in Gentile’s philosophy of law; but his +pedagogy makes it far easier and his lectures perfectly +easy. There is something religious about it which pervades +the whole of his philosophy as it pervades Fascism.</p> + +<p>The child is brought to realise what he is by looking +at the various societies which co-operate in making him +what he is. Being asked what he would say, If somebody +meeting him in America asked him what he was and who +he was, what would he say? He usually answers to such a +question that he would say: “I am so-and-so,” but he is +then asked: “What does that mean?” which brings the +child to realise that the meaning of his name is that he is +the son of his father and mother, he is what he is first of +all as belonging to his particular family. Again: “I am +so-and-so” conveys but little to a perfect stranger. What +would he say next. “I am an Italian.” Very well, and +“what kind of man in Italy?”... The child here usually +pauses in great perplexity. It takes some time before he +comes to speak of a possible profession and of his religion; +and for this last point it is necessary to point out to him +that there are several religions. Once he has got there, +however, he realises so fully all that is implied in this kind +of definition that one can hardly help being astonished +by the readiness with which children or older boys work +out Gentile’s ideas. The author has had the opportunity +of noting how easily children grasped the true nature of +their relation to family, country, religion, and school, and +the fact that what they were depended on their consciousness +of being a living member of such societies. The child +thus acquires a religious attitude towards them. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>realises the sacred character of the family, as based solely +upon his own moral realisation of his relation to the members +of his family. The family blood running in his veins, +he is told has nothing to do with that relation. His father +is his father in the spiritual way which alone binds them +together, because he calls him his son and acknowledges +paternal relationship to him with all the duties and claims +that it involves. Gradually he comes to realise that he +draws all his importance—his reality—from his conscious +relation to the societies to which he belongs and which +together make up the not-self; and that such societies are +merely the various consciousness of single members +transcending their poor, limited, empirical little selves +and calling into existence their better and greater, transcendental +selves. Man as a thing-in-itself is nowhere to +be found; mankind vanishes like a phantom as soon as +you try to meet it. If every man and boy in the world +discharged his duty as a member of a family, of a school, +of a club, of a calling, and finally of a church and of a state, +mankind would certainly know peace and well-being, for +man then would consider his relations, school, club and +trade fellows, religious brethren and fellow citizens as +belonging to his own self. But no man can do so perfectly, +and it is as much as can be expected from him if he +does what, in the sincerity of his soul, he knows to be the +very best he can do and loves his neighbour merely so +far as he realises him to be part of his greater self. The +speculative ground of such a conception of life must be +briefly stated before coming to the idea of Liberty and Law, +and to that of citizen and state.</p> + +<p>Spiritual reality is not Mind plus some spiritual fact; +it is purely and simply Mind as subject, since any spiritual +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>fact must be resolved in the real activity of the subject, +who knows it. Common language expresses this by saying +that to know something thoroughly we must make it our +own. Strictly speaking we know no others. If we know +them and speak of them they must be within us. To +know is to identify, to overcome otherness as such. As +long as we feel ourselves confronted by the spiritual existence +of others as different from ourselves, something from +which we must distinguish ourselves, something which we +presuppose as having been in existence before our birth, +it is merely a sign that we are not yet realising the +spirituality of their existence. To us they are still nature.</p> + +<p>This doctrine would be absurd if it were not considered +in the light of Gentile’s notion of the transcendental and +empirical selves, both meeting in man, as a concrete +person in whom the infinity of the transcendental individualises +itself through the finiteness of the empirical. +The transcendental ego being one and the empirical egos +being multiplicity itself, it is obvious that the <i>differences</i> +are as necessary to the identity as the fuel to the fire. It +is, indeed, through the process of transcending empirical +differences that man asserts the transcendental character +of mind.</p> + +<p>Obviously all the difficulties of moral problems arise +from an empirical conception of man and his relations to +others. Empirically I am an individual, and as such in +opposition not only to all material things, but equally to +all the individuals to whom I assign a spiritual value, since +all objects of experience, whatever their value, are not only +distinct but separate from one another in such a way that +each, by its own particularity absolutely excludes from +itself all the rest. All moral problems arise from experience +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>and arise precisely because of the absolute opposition in +which the ego, empirically conceived, stands to other +persons tormented by the supreme moral aspiration of our +being that longs for a harmony in which we should become +one with all others and with the whole world. This +means that moral problems arise in so far as we become +aware of the unreality of our being, as an empirical ego, +opposed to other persons and surrounding things, and in +so far as we come to see that our own life is actualised in +the things opposed to it. But though this is the situation +in which moral problems arise, they are solved only when +man comes to feel another’s needs as his own, and thereby +finds that his own life means that he is not closed within +the narrow circle of his empirical personality, but is ever +expanding in the activity of a mind superior to all particular +interests and yet immanent in the very core of his +personality. It must never be forgotten, however, that +the reality of the transcendental ego, far from destroying +the empirical ego, implies it.</p> + +<p>Passing to the essential characteristics of what might +be opposed as spiritual to what is natural, we find Gentile +working out the distinction from the fact that anything +natural, such as a stone, <i>is</i> whilst anything spiritual, +mind, a work of mind, a political constitution <i>becomes</i>. +Mind and being are opposite terms. A plant <i>is</i>, an animal +<i>is</i>, in so far as all the determinations of the plant or animal +are a necessary and <i>pre-ordained consequence</i> of its nature. +All the manifestations by which their nature is expressed +are already there, existing implicitly. The empirical manifestations +of their being come to be conceived, therefore, +as closed within limits already prescribed as impassable +boundaries. In the natural world everything is pre-ordained +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>according to the law of Nature, or, to use +Gentile’s own words, everything <i>is by Nature</i>. In the +spiritual world nothing <i>is by Nature</i>, but it becomes what it +becomes through the activity of mind. Nothing is ever +ready-made; nothing can be finished and complete. The +social position of a family, the political system of a country +can never be settled once for all; the members of the +former and the citizens of the latter must go on creating +it day by day and hour by hour. So is it with moral life. +All the noblest achievements of the past do not diminish +one whit the sum of duties still to be performed. The +minute man stops realising in the inmost recesses of his +consciousness what he must do for his family, for his +country, or even for the firm to which he belongs, the +family will be decadent, the country will begin to lose +what his predecessors had painfully won, the firm will feel +the incipient decay of a credit acquired through work and +sacrifice. Nothing is ever done once for all; morally, +intellectually, politically, socially, economically, everything +is always to be done.</p> + +<p>A hard gospel to preach when man is accustomed as he +is now to hear only the proclamation of his rights. Sacrifice, +self-denial is here pointed out as the way to greater +conquests and to the assertion of a nobler and more +powerful self. To find spiritual reality man must seek it +and, seeking it, create it. This means that it never confronts +him as an external reality. If man wants to find it +he must work to realise it. So long as it is sought it is +found, so long as it is being conquered or constructed it +is to be found, so long but no longer. Empires show signs +of incipient decay the moment the Empire builders stop +building them, stop wanting to build them. Yet from this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>austere conception of life springs a beautiful notion of +liberty, a splendid conception of man’s creativity.</p> + +<p>Gentile has had the courage to study closely, very +closely, the old scholastic Doctors, thereby acquiring a +deep and almost unerring sense of Christianity; whilst +his familiarity with the problems of law and the works of +the Humanists and the Renaissance, have marked him +with characteristics that sometimes cause his hearers to +hail in him a Father of the Church. All this notwithstanding +there are many points of doctrine upon which he +stands in contrast with the theologians.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Where Gentile speaks of thinking he invariably refers +both to the act of the will and to the act of the intellect; +for he considers their distinction as having been abolished +when through the work of modern psychology the very +notion of a multiplicity of faculties was rejected. The +mind is not now intellect and now will; but is known now +as intellect and now as will. It should be observed, however, +that the creative will does not create a world that +issues from it and exists independently of it; it is self-creative +just as any judgment is first of all self-assertive. +No act of man’s will is ever directed to something already +realised; man always wants to do an action. For instance, +wanting a new pair of shoes merely means wanting to +buy, to have, to get, a new pair of shoes; and since we +have seen that any action is self-assertion, man in any act +of will is wanting to realise his own self. In consequence of +the unity existing between him and the world, man’s purpose +is never external to him. Man realising his own self: +such is the nature of mind, dynamic and dialectic at once.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span></p> + +<p>This notion of dialectic enables us to meet law and +liberty on their common ground, morality; spiritual +reality is endowed with a life that is best called dialectic, +inasmuch as it is never either completely positive or +purely negative. Anything spiritual from the most intimate +religious experience, down to any political form, +family arrangement, or business establishment <i>is</i> so long +as, not yet being, it strives to realise, to assert, to establish +itself. Anything spiritual let us say, human, the moment +it <i>is</i>, that is to say the moment it is accomplished, the +moment it ceases to develop or establish itself, is dead or +dying. Gentile uses even stronger language: he says outright, +<i>as a reality it is absolutely</i> annihilated.</p> + +<p>For him, as for Kant, the law of man’s will is the end +that determines each act of will; since to be moral the +will must have in itself its own law and its own end. The +word moral can here have but one equivalent, namely, +spiritual, that is to say <i>possessing value</i>. Morality so understood +is an attribute of the entire life of mind, which must +have an absolute value—be it truth, beauty, or goodness—such +value being meaningless if it does not correspond to +an ought to be, imperative <i>hic et nunc</i> as a consequence of +liberty. Moreover, this binding imperativeness is universal—for +imperative means necessary, and there can be no +necessity without universality.</p> + +<p>The good is, in conclusion, the value of man’s spirit in +its dialectical actuality; it may be termed the most concrete +form of spiritual reality. Any spiritual act is moral +in so far as it is mind’s realisation; consequently the +negation of morality cannot be understood without understanding +this realisation, which is the spiritual process +or development of mind as society. The good is development; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>and as such it implies evil as its negativity.⁠<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> Light +and shadow, good and evil; in both cases the second +term is the negative of the first. And herein lies all the +tragedy of mind. Spiritual life is a complex of light and +shadow, a constant struggle of the particular with the +universal. Negativity opposes itself to positivity, evil to +good, as the <i>particular</i> to the universal. Yet it is through +their conflict and opposition that spiritual life realises +itself, and this realisation is entrusted to the individual, +who in and through his very particularity is the agent of +the universal will.</p> + +<p>Obviously, if we take man, the individual man, in his +pure empiricalness, he can do nothing without superhuman +help. But this notion of man, which is the ground +of all the abstract forms of egoism, individualism and +anarchy, is a mere fancy. No single man can so be deprived +of the divine light of intelligence as not to know +of his own existence as a person, as a self, and in the very +act of knowing himself as such to assert what is universal +in him. Man in short is universal in so far as he does not +belong to nature, a pure object of knowledge, but is a +subject. So that his moral law is nothing superadded to +him <i>ab extra</i>, it is the life granted to him by Providence +realising itself.</p> + +<p>This is a far cry from ordinary selfishness. From this +point of view the <i>bellum omnium contra omnes</i> appears as +the materialistic fancy of a man whose idea of the world +was inferred from the idea of the body. Man’s body is in +fact one among many. But man’s will in his opposition to +other wills reveals his universality. That opposition which +had been taken as proof of the plurality and radical particularity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>of subjective will is insisted upon by Gentile as a +proof of the unity and radical universality of such will. +Men’s wills collide with each other, it is true, but they do +so in the very attempt to enforce the claims of that in them +which is universal. For will has not realised itself as +long as it stands as one will face to face with another will +or so many other wills. In such a position it appears as one +among many, as accidental and particular, as having a +law differing from that of the others; whereas it always +claims to be Will, against which there can be no other will—experience +shows us daily that nothing can be done when +diverging wills are exerting themselves—and such is the +characteristic of the moral will.</p> + +<p>The statement of this problem, the moral problem, is +very difficult indeed, and from a misrepresentation of the +relations between <i>my</i> will and <i>your</i> will and <i>his</i> will, arise +conflict and war; but our conception of war is not complete +if we consider it apart from the conception of peace. +War is nothing but the realisation of peace, which is the +reconciliation of a duality or plurality of wills in the Will. +This is why war exists and why there are private interests +conflicting in the plurality of wills. Such war and conflict, +however, are due to the particularity of the wills and last +as long as each of these wills insists on realising itself as +universal, ceasing when they compose their differences +and accept as the common will that which has manifested +its universality through the conflict. A peace without war +cannot be conceived, since peace is the life of will and will +cannot live but in a self-assertion which is nothing but the +eternal resolution of the conflict through which it comes +into being. Thus will is, and ever must be, <i>concordia +discors</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span></p> + +<p>Whatever the social unit taken as an example—family, +school, state, church—the reality of it is always in development +and is intelligible only as a process. It never <i>is</i>, and +always is, but only in so far as it realises itself in perfect +liberty. This free realisation does not permit of the +separation of its negativity from its positivity. In such a +way, though realising itself as universal, the family or +state can be thought of as a spiritual reality only in so +far as it contains the particular element which offers an +endless resistance to the process of universalisation. A +society that perfectly unifies its spiritual diversity, +abolishing every sign of variety, has inevitably gone to +pieces since it loses all the spiritual forces that made it +alive. Gentile goes so far as to say that in fact it is already +dead. It is the eternally recurring opposition of interests +and wills that permits the dialectic and dynamic unity of +life to pulsate in any social constitution. Consequently the +particularity of the will—to be resolved in the universal—consists +in its negativity, without which the assertion of +the universal could not exist as an act, for it would be a +mere fact, not something due to the act of man but just +something which <i>is</i> by nature.</p> + +<p>There is no assertion of will which is not exclusion, +suppression of its own negation. Thus society is empirically +the agreement of individuals, and speculatively the +realisation of will through an eternal process. Universal +value is thereby identified as a process realising itself +through the suppression of what is particular and negative. +Society is not <i>inter homines</i>, but <i>in interiore homine</i> and it +can exist between men inasmuch as all men are spiritually +one man, with one single interest: the eternal <i>increment</i> +of the patrimony of mankind.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p> + +<p>Now <i>society</i> implies <i>authority</i>, a superior will imposed +on the associated wills to unite them under a common law. +Rousseau had conceived the state, the people as a passive +body, reserving activity for the sovereign. Gentile having +raised to speculative form the brilliant intuition that lies +in the Contract, after having fully recognised it as Rousseau’s +idea, now rejects his conception of the distinction +between sovereign and subjects. What he actually denies +is the passivity ascribed to the people, and the school is, as +usual, the experimental ground of his notion.</p> + +<p>School is a form of spiritual association implying a +teacher, lawgiver to his pupils. It is not the teacher, however +that, through his authority, brings the pupils to +accept truth; on the contrary it is truth that confers +authority on the teacher. The <i>Ipse dixit</i> implies a great +knowledge of the master’s familiarity with science. +Whatever the ground on which we acknowledge an authority, +the authority is such as a consequence of our +<i>acknowledging</i> it; and all the theories and inquiries concerning +the source of a higher authority are to Gentile +vain prattling. For him it is quite obvious that, however +high such an authority may be it will never be higher +than the height to which it has been raised by the +people subject to it. Through this agency and this +agency alone authority <i>becomes</i> law.</p> + +<p>Authority is invested in the spiritual self, the universal +person, ultimately the only sovereign. This transcendental +self is the transcendental law of which we have +spoken as moral law, the transcendental sovereign which +has brought Gentile to reject Rousseau’s distinction +between passive citizenship and active sovereignty +because it throbs in every man’s breast and is the one law +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>and sovereign that can impose laws and make them +acknowledged.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It is now easy to realise that, although Gentile was +first known as a Hegelian, by the time he wrote his +philosophy of law he had fully developed the more realistic +tendencies of his Idealism which link him to Thomas +Aquinas, Kant and above all to Vico. The real difference +between Gentile’s notion of political reality and that of +Hegel—the likeness is too obvious to require pointing out—is +a consequence of their different ways of working out +their respective notions of reality.</p> + +<p>In spite of his brilliant conception of dialectic +Hegel’s intuition of Reality is not dialectical but intellectualistic, +and therefore static. He realised that we +do not conceive reality dialectically unless we conceive +it as itself thought. But he distinguished the intellect +which conceives things from the reason which conceives +mind and his dialectic was in consequence a dialectic of +thought, thought however being understood as the result +of the act of thinking. Whereas to have a real dialectic, +corresponding to the throbbing reality of life, what is +wanted is a dialectic of thought, understood as the act of +thinking. What has already been thought is as static as +a stone. Hence the necessity in which Hegel found himself +of separating thought and action, which led him to +declare in the introduction to his philosophy of Right that +Philosophy was a twilight bird, whose activity began at +dusk when the day’s work was done. For Hegel a law in +order to be imperative must be pronounced by something +that is already in existence. But Reality in existence +is nature. Hegel’s state belonging thus to static reality, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>being a fact, not an act, the citizen is nothing in himself; +all his reality come to him from the state. This does not +mean that he is annihilated (both in Imperialism and +Communism he is very highly cultivated), but is as the +little wheel of a huge engine which is carefully oiled so +that the machine may go the better for it. His end is +the state’s end.</p> + +<p>Not so with Gentile. Reality, being really dialectical +does not admit of a distinction between will and intellect. +You do not act and then think about it. For life, natural +or spiritual, is the reality: if theory, the activity of the +intellect, is merely a contemplation of it, such theory +is not even real. How can one think of something added +to the real world? What could such an addition be? +There is no way of conceiving knowledge except as +a creation of the spiritual reality which is itself knowledge. +If Reality is spiritual, in realising itself it creates both the +will and the intellect. It is only through the empirical +consideration of their manifestations that they can be +distinguished; speculatively they are one and the same +thing.</p> + +<p>The difference between the idea of a good action and +a good action itself is a difference between two ideas. +In the first case we mean the idea which is a content or +abstract result of thought, but not the act by which we +think it, and in which its concrete reality truly lies. And +in the second we mean the idea, not as an object or content +of thought, but as the act which realises a spiritual reality.</p> + +<p>The state can not be a fact, something already realised. +It is the eternal process, the <i>instauratio regnum boni</i> +always becoming, and dying to be realised by the consciousness +of the individual in its own process of self-realisation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>The state is indeed the moral reality of the +individual, who to become a citizen realises himself transcending +his empirical subjectivity. The state exists +only in the hearts of men; it is the intellectual and practical +activity of men realising themselves as spiritual reality. +It is always being altered through the positive and negative +manifestation of man’s moral will. Man is not and +cannot be subject to the state, except in so far and in so +far only as he is its creator. And creation means liberty +no less than self-realisation means realisation of the not-self +and therefore the law.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p> + + + <h3 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X"> + CHAPTER X + <br> + BENITO MUSSOLINI + </h3> +</div> + + +<p>Now that we have traced both the political and philosophical +antecedents of what is here called Fascism, since +it expresses itself as such, but might perhaps as well be +termed the political and philosophical coming of age of +Italy as a great nation, we must turn to the man, whose +lot it has been to embody such historical forces and bring +them to actual realisation.</p> + +<p>It may seem rather rash to compare Benito Mussolini +with Dante and some people may think it a profanation. +Poetry and politics put on the same level; a man considered +by many little better than an adventurer (and +appearing as such in the biography written by a friend of +his, Miss M. Sarfatti); the new constitution far from +being complete and, Fascist legislation comprising with +a very few great laws, a sequence of decrees suggestive +of tyranny! Such a comparison must seem to some +absurd, although it is a fact that just as Dante embodied +in the Divina Commedia all the philosophy, all the arts +and politics of mediæval Italy, Mussolini is now embodying +in the new régime all that is great and good in modern +Italy.</p> + +<p>It may be held, in fact, that political deeds do express +the life of minds just as forcibly as poetry, therefore that +they do not stand in a position of æsthetic inferiority to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>the compositions of poets, unless one chooses to compare +the politics of a decadent period to the poetry of a great +period. It may also be held that “adventurer” is an +epithet that befits better the Duce of Miss Sarfatti than +the Uomo Novo of Antonio Beltramelli, in whose book +the same Duce appears as the herald of an entirely new +period of the life of Italy. And the present book is concerned +exclusively with what may prove of lasting value +in the laws of the government of Mussolini, and does not +imply an approval of what may be objectionable in the +actual methods of government; it takes the view that +tyrannical decrees and the like are inherent in the revolutionary +stage of the régime and temporary measures bound +to disappear when that stage has been outgrown. Our +sensible souls may be shocked when we feel the violence of +the hatred with which Dante pursues his enemies right into +Hell or Purgatory. Mussolini’s soul is just as sensible and +modern as our own. Not only would he forbear from hating +his dead adversaries, but he does not hate his enemies even +during their life. He can speak of them with the greatest +serenity and recall the time when they were his friends +without losing his sense of fair appreciation. He can compare +with Dante for the violence of his hostility only when +hostile attacks are directed against his task and are an +impediment to him and his men in what he considers the +work laid down for them by Providence.</p> + +<p>But this is stretching too far a comparison which has +been made merely to explain the impossibility of giving +good grounds for the fact that Mussolini was the one man +fit to realise in politics all the theoretical ideas and practical +tendencies that have been traced in this work. Such +facts are as mysterious as the nature of genius. Yet it may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>not be out of place to note that both Dante and Mussolini +have the same love of learning and just too much intuition +to contribute to the theoretical life of mind; and that the +contrast which exists between some inferior passages of +the Divina Commedia and those that make it an immortal +poem is not greater than that which exists between what +is objectionable in Mussolini’s way of ruling and that which +is likely to be of eternal value in the ideals that underlie +the whole of his political thought of action.</p> + +<p>Through the political realisation of what was potentially +included in their political theories France and England +have shared, as we have seen, the honour of being the +champions of Liberalism and Radical Democracy, just as +through the political elaboration of the theories of Kant, +Fichte and Hegel, Germany has developed Imperialism +and Communism. Now that such political institutions and +systems of philosophy have given all that could be had out +of them, Italy comes forward and opposes, to what her +thinkers consider as being henceforth at best abstract +subjectivism, another subjectivism which—being freed +from the materialism, mechanism and naturalism, that +persisted in thought and life of former generations, being +freed also from the practical reasons which compelled the +thinkers of those days to oppose religion on account of the +Church’s impediments to free researches—can identify +itself with Mind, and more specially with the activity of +Mind. The individual, the subject to assert itself in the +activity of mind must have an object. Self implies Not-self. +Therefore, liberty implies law. The citizen implies +the state. The employer, or the employed, implies the +enterprise for the productivity of which one employs and +the other is employed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p> + +<p>In short, after the objectivism of the late Middle Ages +and Renaissance, after the subjectivism of the modern +world, Fascism is the synthesis of both in politics, just as +well as in philosophy, since, after the “everything through +the force of privilege” of the former and the “everything +through the force of numbers” of the latter, it comes and +says “everything for everyone that shall deserve it +through moral sacrifice and productive activity.” It tries +to bring forward the Christian equality of men since it +meets everyone on the basis of actual value. It tries to +realise fraternity by getting men to feel that their real +value is based on their realising as perfectly as possible +the intimate relation of self and Not-self which brings +each man to see himself in his neighbour, and his neighbour +as himself.</p> + +<p>Mussolini, to whom we must always turn as the living +expression of Fascism, firmly believes that men may be +called upon to sacrifice some of their most selfish claims +and he hopes to make them realise that they must renounce +their empirical selves to create thereby the State +as their transcendental self. Fascism does not want men +to look upon law—in the broadest sense of the word—as a +sort of starry reality inalterable and indifferent to men; +it hopes that they may realise how intimately it is related +to every citizen, and from the very first year of their +school life little children are mentally trained to see it as +their own will transcending itself and becoming law in a +kind of religious objectivity.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mussolini, when he was still in his teens, used to sit up +late in the inn kept by his father in Forli, and according +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>to a man who used to meet him there, he was even then +wont to distress himself at the materialistic form which +Socialism had taken in Italy. Day after day he would +make the same objection, “It is all right,” he would say, +“to better the economic conditions of the people, and +you do better them. But I cannot help realising that they +are losing more and more the spiritual life which was for +them religion and tradition, without taking anything of the +higher and nobler side of Socialism.” He had read Andrea +Costa’s writings and was devouring the international +classics of Socialism, besides his Mazzini, so often quoted +by his own father and the Republicans of Forli, who had +never read a page of the great idealist. The thought that +people were getting more and more indifferent to everything +but food or rest, was a nightmare to him. When some +twelve years later he became the leader of the Socialist +Party in the same town he took up the official attitude +of his party against religion. This may be noted in the +articles he wrote as the editor of <i>La Lotta di classe</i> during +the years 1910–1911. He is an orthodox Socialist, and +pours out a lot of anti-religious and even anti-patriotic +stuff in a style and with a choice of vocabulary that might +befit indifferently an English, a French, or a German +Socialist leader of the same period. Here and there, however, +a single sentence attracts the careful Italian reader, +or the foreigner familiar with all the shades of the language. +A personal accent is felt; there is an original idea in an +original wording; and it is either a request that the party +leaders should be experts and the members qualified +artisans; or an appeal highly spiritual, and in a way +deeply religious. There are witnesses to the fact that when +he had been in the morning issuing an official prohibition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>of all religious practises he often met in the evening with a +theologian to see if there could be a way of re-introducing +religion without detriment to Socialism. “For this +people,” he would say, “above all the women, <i>have no +conception of life</i> at all, since we have deprived them of +religion.”</p> + +<p>It would be, therefore, a profound mistake to see in +Mussolini’s attitude towards the Church, and in the action +of his government to reinstate religion all through life, a +political move, intended to secure the support of the +clergy. Religion is not a useful string on which he plays +as the great artist he is, either to secure the support of the +Catholics and their clergy, or to keep people quiet and +insure their moral education. What he realised between +1900 and 1912, through an intuition of genius, is that the +people had no general notion whatever, no concept of +what is life, never even realised that they could ask +themselves such a question as: What is life, what is the +world? and that religion was necessary to them.</p> + +<p>Mussolini firmly believes in the necessity of arousing +strong religious conviction in the people of every class. +He does so on ground provided to him by the example of his +mother, by the result of his own observation and experience +as a leader, and last, but not least by his reading of +de Sanctis’s principal work. That great critic is, indeed, +the one link between Vico, Croce, Gentile and Mussolini, +whose genius was to create the political system in which +their ideas receive practical realisation.</p> + +<p>Fascism rejects the very notion of theory as distinct +from action and is a constant expression in action of +ideas far more easily acted upon than formulated, so that +its most ignorant followers go as far as to reject the possibility +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>of anything like an intellectual movement paving +the way for them through the preceding generations, +whilst they act all along in keeping with the spiritual +atmosphere which that intellectual movement has developed +and the ideas it has put in circulation. The reason of +this lies in the æsthetic genius of Mussolini. Like the +greatest artists produced by Italy, he is at once macrocosm +and microcosm. The whole of Italy’s past, as in another +Dante, converges in him. His avid personality takes it all +in, to put it out again with such an indelible stamp upon +it that what might be termed its Fascist-ness is the only +character left to it.</p> + +<p>Now what Mussolini hopes to obtain from the recrudescence +of religious life is that the people should get a +wider outlook upon <i>Life</i> in the highest sense of the word. +He never uses philosophical terms to express it; yet so +highly speculative is the notion that Giovanni Gentile is +probably the only philosopher to have worked it out, and +whosoever did not believe in Providence could be convinced +that Providence exists just by studying Croce, +Gentile, and the way their work attains realisation at the +hands of Mussolini without any previous arrangement. +By getting people to have a deeper understanding of life +Mussolini means to make them realise that man’s individual +life is not by a long way the supreme value, that +man’s individual will is not by a long way the supreme +law, that man’s individual circumstances are not in themselves +by a long way constitutive of <i>Life</i>. All these aims he +hopes to reach through religion.</p> + +<p>When he was a Socialist Leader he was struck by the +immorality of women and by the cowardice of men. These +would lay traps in which other people might lose their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>lives, as when they unscrewed the rails of the railway in +the province of Forli, but they would not risk their own +lives. Being at that time, a most orthodox Socialist he +could not think: “let us stop this demoralising propaganda.” +He believed that it would be all right in the end, +when the end, with a capital E, should have come for +this capitalist society based as it was on selfishness. He +wanted a religion, and having then a mentality quite +anti-historical, he really believed that he could give them +a new religion if he could but find it. For this would make +them realise, so he thought, that they did not count in +themselves but only through their relations to others; and +that to realise their better self, they must always look at +the whole, which is nothing so long as single men are not +conscious of belonging to it, but without which they can +do nothing to assert their claims as rights and out of which +indeed no claim of theirs can really be a right. Obviously, +this is man transcending his own self to assert it through +the very negation of its empirical nature.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to insist too much on this point for the +new conception of life that was reaching speculative +expression in the works of Gentile was here, in this intuitive +mind of quite a young man, who knew nothing of +Gentilian theories, working its way towards practical +realisation. Before the way in which he was to proceed +from this to the economic theories that <i>may</i> rid the western +world of strikes and lock-outs one fact must be put in evidence. +From what has been said above, it is clear that his +appreciation of the strength of any collectivity must be +based on the degree of consciousness with which the single +members realise such collectivity. He had at first not made +out the import and the consequences of such a view. But the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>necessity of pleading his own cause, when he was tried in +1911 by the Tribunal of Forli, for having ordered a strike +of protest against the Tripoli war, put on his lips a declaration +that must be taken into consideration whenever +Mussolini’s “Imperialism” is in question. In the records +of the tribunal he is stated to have pleaded his case, +saying that he did not love his country less than the +Nationalists did; the difference was between his idea of a +country’s greatness and theirs. He thought that such +greatness depended far more on the spiritual and economic +level reached by the people of a country, than on its +territorial extension, the number of its inhabitants, or the +importance of its colonies. To argue that he has changed +his mind on this as on other points would not be consistent +with facts. Since his advent to power the efficiency +of the army and navy has been brought to a higher +standard, but their effective numbers have not been +increased at all; whilst the greatest care and expense +have been dedicated to the reform of education, nothing +being spared that can promote a deeper consciousness of +the individual, and an immense scheme is a foot to improve +the intellectual and spiritual conditions of adults, involving +huge expense by the government and great personal +sacrifice by the intellectual and artistic classes.</p> + +<p>When Mussolini was in Forli he could not satisfy any +of his realistic or idealistic exigencies. His intellectual +position as a Socialist made him long for a paradise to +come, a dream at best; his nature, like that of many in +his province, made him long for actual facts. The position +proved a difficult one and he was only kept going by the +strength of his convictions which were most sincere. The +man who was on his staff in the <i>Lotta di Classe</i> is still a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>workman and a Socialist; and speaks with as much regret +for that time as with bitterness for Mussolini’s “desertion +from the party,” a “desertion” which nothing will make +him see as a consequence of the very sincerity to which he +ascribes Mussolini’s power of fascination. It is this man +who has furnished the author of this present book with +the clue that made it possible to trace back the way through +which Mussolini came to realise how unhistorical and, +therefore, false was his position.</p> + +<p>The adversaries of the Socialists were continually reproaching +them for having invented the class struggle. +Just because he was absolutely sincere Mussolini minded +the accusation very much. For if that was so the responsibility +was indeed a heavy one. He started, therefore, +looking in history for the origin of that struggle. And it was +inevitable that his Italian mentality should, through the +process of his researches, emerge in all its national and +personal definiteness; that he should reject, more or less +consciously, all that is not concrete and actual. The +Italians usually call “historical” a true knowledge or +realisation of a given situation of fact, whether past or +present; again they call “historical” the vision of life +as the eternal alteration of such situations through a +process which knows no regress.</p> + +<p>To his relief Mussolini soon found out that the class +struggle had existed always and everywhere, and that it +was due to social and financial differences: and this +cheered the convinced Socialist in him. His next step was +to realise that not only had such a struggle existed in +Rome, in Athens, and elsewhere, but that it was actually +the main cause of social progress. And with this the +Socialist triumphantly exulted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span></p> + +<p>The triumph was a short one, however, and the cause +of this exultation was to prove a mortal blow to his +Socialist faith. If class struggle was the main agent of +progress and class differences the cause of such struggle, +there could be no progress, no movement, when class +differences had been abolished. So painful was the conclusion +that he must have tried to reject it. When classes +should be abolished, every thing would be for the best, +granted that it could come to be.</p> + +<p>His incursion into the history of the past had given +him the one chance his realistic mind had been waiting +for to realise that perfection does not exist, that +perfection cannot exist, since it is only from the +deficiencies of a form of society that the idea of what is +to be the next form of society can arise. Obviously, it is +by the inconvenience of an actual law that the next law +is called into being. Life would have, therefore, to be +static when the actual state of society would be perfect. +A question remained and indeed was of moment. Could +life be static?</p> + +<p>The answer could not have waited long for so sharp an +observer of life. Life is dialectic. The nature of life was +manifest to him in the arts. De Sanctis had taught him +to see that, whilst the very power of his own individuality +was compelling him to realise that nothing is done but by +single men acting, acting however as members of the +various collectivities which determined their personalities. +He could no longer think of choosing a religion and imposing +it on his followers; they had one at hand which had +been prepared for them by history. Little by little the +truth came. Men did not act for mankind, they acted for +their family, for their religion, for their country; they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>acted to better their conditions or to prevent them from +getting worse. To release Man from his traditions was +equivalent to taking the roots of a tree from the ground, +and condemning it to dry, moulder and rot.</p> + +<p>Was, then, Socialism a drug of such a kind that it could +only do harm? Surely it had done wonders for the +wretched lower classes of Italy! Then the outbreak of the +European War spurred him to take the step which had +become inevitable. His mind was ready; his genius had +reached maturity; circumstances would do the rest.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It is necessary to realise the man and his Dantesque +gift for looking at the idea and grasping facts all along, for +discharging with personal passion a most impersonal task. +It is equally necessary to realise why the people should +have wanted him to succeed and give him that support +without which his genius would have aborted as a sterile +longing for action. According to Croce the act of will of +any single man becomes an event and is granted success +according to the way in which it stands to the will of the +whole, and to the actual situation of fact. Macchiavelli, +it must be borne in mind, tried to do with his Tuscan +militia what Mussolini has achieved, and he only succeeded +in realising how out of keeping with the times his scheme +had been. Sadly, this forerunner of Mussolini, not inferior +to him in genius or reading, had to sit down and write what +the regenerator of Italy would have to do, the necessity of +governing in harmony with the times and according to the +actual truth of circumstances being one of the principles +ever recurring under his pen. “Everyone knows,” says +Benedetto Croce, who is by no means a Fascist, in the +<i>Philosophy of the Practical</i>, printed for the first time in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>1908, “that no <i>vultus instantis tyranni</i> can extinguish the +freedom of the soul; no ruler, be he ever so strong and +violent, can prevent a rebellion.” If people choose to use +the word tyrant in the Greek sense of the word they may +call Mussolini a tyrant, for he is and will be an unconstitutional +ruler until the new institutions are so framed, that +the new régime can function normally. But if it is implied +by that, as the modern sense of the word allows, that he +rules against the people’s will it is merely absurd, and one +single fact could prove the contrary. When two years ago +he asked that a certain sum should be subscribed in dollars +towards the paying to the United States War Debt, the +issue was many times what he had asked. It would not +be true to facts to omit that although it was not compulsory, +there was a good deal of moral pressure made to +get the people to subscribe. But surely they did not need +to cover it so many times and the excess was indeed most +spontaneously subscribed.</p> + +<p>The people of Italy do grumble at many things which are +done by the Fascists, and anybody would do so. It is +mainly, however, individual actions which are the object +of complaint and not laws or public services. For it must +be kept in mind that the actual form of Mussolini’s government +has been called into being by the misgovernment or +rather non-government of the people who preceded him in +power, and the country felt the need of being governed +in one way or another.</p> + +<p>It has been shown in the first part of this book why Italy +was not governed at all, why no public service could work +effectively, why foreign policy had to be so inferior to the +real position of the country, why the beautiful peninsula +had fallen into a state bordering on anarchy. It is difficult +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>for an Englishman to realise how a country could fall +into such conditions. England has five or six centuries +of political experience, a length of time more than sufficient +to produce electors and representatives able to realise +what are the duties of the executive as well as those of the +legislature. Everybody in England is familiar with the +process through which political forms come into being. +People struggle to reach a certain form of government and +that moment of dialectic ends when the form is reached; +they then apply it more and more fully and during its +application discover its limitations; this second movement +ends in criticism of the whole thing; finally, people +set themselves to remedy its shortcomings. This last +moment coincides in the people with the full consciousness +of dissatisfaction, and in the leaders with a clear understanding +of the new tendencies to be satisfied. Thus the +people learn to use a new form whilst they are using, then +discarding, the one that came before it. In Italy nothing +of the sort happened. The political leaders would have +been ashamed to be behindhand in what was considered +“social progress.”</p> + +<p>The immediate aftermath of the war in Italy was as we +have seen morally a tragedy. It seemed as if something +had died, something spiritual. Everything seemed to be +going to pieces. Nobody seemed to think, nobody seemed +to realise that moral forces, a national consciousness had +been produced by the general sacrifice. A few heroes were +watching over the flame lit up in the young souls who +had learned truth in the bitter experience of war. They +were very few indeed, and they could only get a hearing +through the actual violence with which they fell on the old +political classes, who were intent on convincing the people +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>that the war had to be forgotten as a nightmare, that man +must forget it as soon as possible to throw himself again +into his pursuit of material well-being.</p> + +<p>Whatever the smallness of their number—when Mussolini +founded the first <i>Fascio</i> in 1919 they were 150—they +were enough to arouse a deep echo in the youth of Italy, +which was beginning both for spiritual and practical +reasons to conceive life as an energy, a force, a consciousness +transcending the limits set by the interests of the +individual, bound to upset violently the quiet and selfish +life of the man intent on the satisfaction of his most +empirical desires.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Mussolini’s belief was that you could make man realise +that, if he is the centre of the universe, he is so through +his relation to the universe, but that you could not do +this by words. The only way to make men realise that +selfishness, when it becomes absolute is bound to reduce +society to atomistic irrelativeness and thereby to anarchy, +was, according to him, <i>action</i>. If a body of men were ready +to do, through coherent action and sacrifice of their +individual wills, what the government ought to have done, +then the people would know that they could cease from +being bullied by the Bolshevist Socialists and followers of +Don Sturzo, provided they were willing to sacrifice their +individual wills, as the men of a team of football do when +they want to win a match. He felt sure that he could call +his countrymen to the sacrifice of life and to the acceptance +of the harshest discipline if they could but be induced to +cease centring their whole mind upon their precious selves. +There was, however, no time to organise a religious +revival; and his knowledge of men provided him with the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>one intuition that could be acted upon at the time. He +called on them to defend the value of their own sacrifice +in the trenches and in the field. Now that was not cold +and distant as the idea of the nation might have proved; +it was quite real to them and moved them consequently as +nothing else could. Through the action of a few hundreds +several hundreds of thousands were induced to fight for the +defence of what had been their former action. The fighting +however was only on a very small scale and mostly in the +provinces where the tyranny of the Reds and Whites had +to be broken; the breaking up of that tyranny made the +people look upon the Black Shirts as their liberators. +Peasant women and children were once more free to go +to Church, officers and wounded men were once more +free to go about in their uniforms without being attacked +or insulted, workmen were once more free to attend their +daily work and earn their money as they liked. The +Fascists did not have to fight their way to power. They +merely took it and were cheered on to taking it.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>As soon as Mussolini was in power he was asked by his +ministers what his programme was. He curtly answered +“that it was to realise the full value of Italy’s sacrifice +in the war.” He had no political programme and was so +indifferent to party distinctions that he took ministers +from every party, choosing them only according to their +qualification as experts. What he required from them was +the maximum of efficiency, and the maximum also of +personal responsibility.</p> + +<p>His first great move was the reform of education. For +him the greatness of a country depended on the consciousness +of its citizens. The work was naturally entrusted to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>Giovanni Gentile, who was the greatest authority on +pedagogy. He had to face immense difficulty and he did +it with such energy and indomitable will that the educational +reform became law and was being applied eleven +months after the march on Rome. The main features of +it are the re-introduction of religious and moral, æsthetic +and practical education in the schools where rational +instruction had been paramount for twenty years. This +was in accord with modern philosophy, reinstating in their +lawful places along with imagination and intuition, all the +activities of Mind which had not been duly recognised +nor sufficiently developed in the last generations. +Religion is understood as the one thing capable of providing +man with a reasonable outlook upon life as a whole, +with a deep consciousness of his own importance as a +factor in the world, and with an equally deep consciousness +of his nonentity as soon as he ceases to be part of a +whole, and considers himself apart from his relations to +his family, to his church, to his school, to his country. +Æsthetic education is meant to develop the faculty of +realising with great definiteness. The child must not +describe in his small essays of ten lines or less something +that he cannot draw, and he must not draw something +different from that which he describes. “Practical” is +a very bad term for the development of judgment in +children yet it is the latest word of philosophy which is +introduced here.</p> + +<p>A good deal of the new education in Italy is done +through the teaching of history. It may be pointed out, +for instance, by the teachers, that Russia has had less +importance in the development of civilisation than +England or France, though they are so much smaller. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>This is pointed out as being a proof that the importance +of a country has nothing to do either with the area it +occupies on the map or with the number of its inhabitants. +Athens and Persia may be opposed in the same way. The +child is thus gradually brought to realise the creative +power of man’s will when it is the “good-will” of the +Scriptures. Such will is presented to him as the individual +will <i>with a plus</i>. That is to say that the man who realises +his duty towards his family, his school, country and so +on, creates something and thereby is really the collaborator +of God.</p> + +<p>Another side of this education is the highly ideal notion +of actual reality which is enforced. The child is taught +that school is not a particular building, but any place +where there is a master to teach and pupils to learn. The +character of such a place is bound to the two acts of +teaching and learning, therefore, their liberty is a sacred +thing. He who prevents the master from being heard, +the pupils from hearing him and learning what he says, +destroys such liberty. Ceasing himself to listen and to +learn, he loses his quality as a pupil, therefore, if his +schoolfellows kick him out or the master, to protect their +liberty and their right to learn, sends him away he has +nothing to say, for he has forfeited his rights by ceasing +to learn. He is a pupil in as far as he is learning. It is +needless to point out that in consequence of this a workman +is entitled to his rights as such, only so long as he is +a contributor to the productivity of the enterprise in +which he is working; that a landowner is the owner of his +land as far as he discharges his duty as such, which is of +making such land produce as much as possible for himself, +for his tenants and for the country; that a man has the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>rights of a citizen as long as he is conscious of his being +one and discharges all the duties correlative to his rights. +The Gentilian reform with Mussolini’s authority has been +able to infuse a new life into the teachers of the elementary +schools. They have taken their work up as an apostolate. +Boys and girls know now that manual work is as dignified +as any, and that it has the merit of being always in demand +and being more productive than shop and office +work. They are taught that they must think, when they +choose a calling, of their old people whom they may have +to help and of the family which they are going to create. +On this particular point the success is wonderful and the +author has had several opportunities of realising it. In +Rome she was met by the request of a widow, the mother +of four children, to recommend her eldest son 15 years old, +to a senator to see if he could not find him a job as callboy. +Objection was made to the choice of the job, so +badly paid and so tedious, good at most for a weak or less +clever lad; the recommendation, however, was promised +out of respect for the mother’s choice. But the morning +after the boy appeared, rather shy, and full of apologies. +He had understood that the choice of the job had not been +approved. Might he say what he felt about it? Then he +began to unburden himself. “You know, miss, I cannot +stand the notion of opening doors, answering bells and +carrying trays.... I want to have a real calling.... +If I am a trained workman I can go all over the world, or +stay here and marry, helping my mother all along, because +I can get 35 lire a day and even more. If I am a real +workman ...” He made up his mind to be a printer +and was introduced to a publisher.</p> + +<p>Religious and patriotic as it is, education in Italy is, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>moreover, grounded on a deep sense of what are the family +duties of man, and on a few sound ideas of what is economic +in every man’s life. Economy is by Mussolini transformed +into a moral value. In this again we see his political +genius going to meet Croce’s theories without knowing +anything about them. For Croce, an action is economic +when it is due to the will of a well-informed individual, +it becomes moral when the individual’s act of will is +consonant with the will of the whole. The most typical +example is that known under the name of <i>Campagna del +Grano</i>, which is meant to induce the landowner and his +tenants to use the most scientific means of increasing the +production of the soil, in order that the country should +be either freed from the enormous expenditure of wheat +importation or have it balanced by the silk, wine, fruit +and oil which should be exported in greater quantities. +Travelling teachers go from village to village and are met +willingly by the peasants whom they address in the most +homely way. First technical suggestions are made with +statistics of results obtained in the nearest fields of +experiment. Then they are discussed with the men. +Finally, these are told that the result will be good for +them as they will get more out of their land without their +work being much increased, but that they must above +all, remember that they will discharge the first of their +civic duty; their productive activity is as constructive +as that of the great scientist and as noble as their own +life in the trenches during the war. You must no longer +plough, sow, reap for your own self, that is to say exclusively +for your material self, but for the state, which is that +same empirical self <i>plus</i> its transcendental complement. +Thereby ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>work of Man, slave of his material needs, but of Man +transcending them, without disregarding them, however, +and lifting his daily occupation to the dignity of a moral +realisation of his own economic value. The state must, +indeed, according to such ideas, be universally present as +a moral factor in every branch of its citizen’s activity. +It is, in fact, the all-pervading consciousness that man +must have of his citizenship which expresses itself as +government.</p> + +<p>Such an assertion is believed by Fascists to be quite +acceptable to the people and where the author has had the +possibility of testing the truth of it she had the impression +that in a little less than a year the peasants were generally +getting used to it, and many acting upon it although they +could not have explained it at all. This <i>moral</i> share of the +state in every economic interest is that which has made it +possible for the government to work out the scheme of the +National Syndicates. This has nothing to do with the +Fascist Syndicates which were until recently opposed to +the Socialist trade unions as one political organisation to +another. The new Syndicates are to be of no political colour +at all; their action is to be purely economic and they are +nearly compulsory.⁠<a id="FNanchor_12_12" href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Every man must belong to one of +them either as a labourer, a capitalist or an intellectual, +the last category containing most professional men. When +any economic conflict arises—causes of conflict have been +reduced to the lowest possible number—the Syndicate +of employers sends its delegates to meet the delegate of the +Syndicate of employed. Such delegates are mostly the +secretaries of the Syndicates and must belong to the calling +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>of the men whose interests are entrusted to them; then +they must have qualified and hold a diploma testifying +to their technical and economic knowledge of the problems +that they may have to treat. The fact that they +must belong to the trade they exercise and actually +exercise it, sweeps away all the professional secretaries +of trade unions, who, living out of their leadership of the +workmen, are ready to do anything to retain their posts. +No less important is the necessity of their technical and +economical qualification. Yet <i>as for the moment</i> there are +no such qualified people to be had and the people are not +yet used to choose their representative according to their +value in the trade and common-sense <i>they are appointed +by the government. And this is one weak point of the organisation</i>, +although it is obviously a temporary one.</p> + +<p>For the rest it is simply wonderful. The delegates of +the two syndicates—employed and employers—meet, +and they discuss the point at issue. Usually they come to +an agreement because the greatest consideration is taken +of the economic facts, local conditions of life, supply and +demand of work and so on. Failing agreement, the syndicates +themselves meet and discuss the matter. If the agreement +is not possible the delegates meet again, but in the +presence of a special magistrate, who studies the case and +whose conclusions are enforced by law. No lock-out or +strike is even contemplated; they have become an +offence against the community, and as such liable to +various penalties. Men are free to produce, but not to +destroy.</p> + +<p>This brings our study to a conclusion, since to deal +with any one point of those which have been merely +sketched here would require a whole volume. The people’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>will is free so long as what they wish is for the common +good and their own good, but it is not free to want anything +that is either not for the common good or against it. +Football is still the best example. The men of a team +freely want to win the match and freely do what they are +ordered to do by their captain, but they are not free to +show off or to spoil the game, to spite the captain or any one +of the men.</p> + +<p>Mussolini makes no mystery about it; his party has +come into the world as the negation of the Rights of Man +as they were formulated in the eighteenth century; as +the negation of Liberty as it has been understood, that is +to say abstracting it from its correlative term Law; as +the negation of democracy as far as democracy is understood, +through a wrong interpretation of its Greek root +taking people as equivalent to lower class, is quantity +opposed to quality—whereas it is equivalent to the nation +as a whole; as the negation of the equality of 1789 which +was materially and mechanically conceived.</p> + +<p>Yet such negations are the preliminary stage to affirmations—the +affirmation of the rights of man <i>arising from +his consciousness of duty</i>; of liberty as the positive term +of Law, yet as inseparable from it as light from shadow; +of democracy understood as the impossibility of any class +willing to rule by force over other classes, be it by the force +of wealth, arms, or numbers; finally, the equality of men, +both moral and legal, according to which every man’s +rights must be proportioned to what he does for the community.</p> + +<p>The great new feature of it is the idea of state and +citizen upon which the whole Mussolinian legislation and +government is based although it seems never to mention +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>it. Whilst in the Anglo-Saxon and French views of +political reality the State is a function of the citizen; +whilst in the German view, whether in its Imperialistic or +Communistic form, the citizen is a function of the state, +for modern Italy the state is the consciousness of the +citizen transcending itself and postulating itself in religious +objectivity.</p> + +<p>No class differences, no financial differences may therefore +be rendered permanent by the State. No care must +be spared that may ensure their eternal mutability. +Differences are necessary to permit moral, social, and +economic progress; but their fertility lies in their +elasticity. If “Avanti” was not the motto of Socialism +the Fascists could make it theirs; as it is, reintroducing +faith and belief at the basis of man’s life they seem to +point to higher moral, political and economical conquests. +The only motto that can befit the black shirts movement +is therefore <i>Sursum corda</i>.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES"> + FOOTNOTES + </h2> +</div> + + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> The author wishes to state that being a Nationalist herself she +has been unable to assume towards Nationalism the purely critical +attitude that she has kept towards Socialism.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> Just as the idea of family in any one individual makes him feel +that the rest of the people are to him <i>not his family</i>, are to him objective +reality, whilst his people are to him THE FAMILY, and part of his +subjective reality.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> The author has lived in Italy as a student since May, 1913, in +constant contact with people of all classes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> To refer to one single district and to facts directly known by the +author, it may be stated that in May, 1920, most of the province of +Udine having been organised under Don Sturzo’s white banner, the +peasants had their minds perverted by the very priests to whom they +had looked hitherto for moral guidance, to the extent of starving their +own cattle, of ceasing to milk their cows, leaving hundreds of beasts +howling day and night for a week. (Some of the land-owners, above +all those who were sportsmen, did their best, at the risk of their life, +to relieve the poor animals, but could not manage to go round the +stables every day.) The present writer is a Roman Catholic, a friend +of peasants wherever she goes and an animal lover; she could not +therefore speak with equanimity of a party who used the priests of +her own church to speak words of violence on the steps of the altar +or in the parsonage-houses, making bullies of country folk she has +known for thirteen years as excellent people, looking after their cattle +with so much humanity that they never sit down to a meal before +their beasts are fed. It is therefore better to state a few facts with +names and dates. In May, 1920, in San Martino al Tagliamento, +Count Francesco di Prampero was sequestered in his house with four +men of the white legion mounting guard on his doors, to compel him +to yield to the will of the priests and their followers. The same might +be said of all the land-owners of the villages where Don Sturzism +flourished. But Count Francesco di Prampero is selected here as +being such a friend of peasants, that he never lived with his family, +since he was in his teens preferring the company of his tenants, +although he belongs to the most ancient aristocracy.</p> + +<p>In the same year groups of followers of Don Sturzo and some <i>Arditi +Bianchi</i> went about with their white flag compelling people to kiss +the hem of it and caning those who would not, the <i>Arditi Bianchi</i>, +who were the armed legion of the party, being ready to shoot the +obdurate men or women. As a matter of fact, the most terrible harm +was that of the sacraments, in a province as religious as that of Udine, +so that it is no wonder that Benedict XV, asked by the present writer +if he could approve such things, was absolutely shocked and let her +understand that since the war it was his greatest torment.</p> + +<p>Space compels to bring this note to a conclusion, and it may be +said that one of the foremost lieutenants of Don Sturzo, in that Province, +was Monsignor Gori, a canon of the cathedral of Udine, a man who +rejoiced over the defeat of his country at Caporetto, befriended the +invaders, and betrayed two women who had said to him that they +were praying for the victory of the allies, so that on his denunciation +they were condemned by the Austrians. This may give a fair idea of +what was a party that took such a man not only in its ranks, but as a +main agent, knowing him to be even then, before the advent of Fascism, +in antagonism with his Archbishop, whose patriotism has since +brought upon him the underhand persecution of the clergy that had +been contaminated by Don Sturzism even in its ecclesiastical discipline.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> See Francisco de Sancti’s <i>Storia della Letteratura Italiana</i>, Lateza, +Bari, vol. ii, chap. i.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> <i>Philosophy of the Practical.</i> 1912. Macmillan, London.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> Quoted by Wildon Carr’s <i>The Philosophy of Mind</i> of Benedetto +Croce.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> <i>Op. cit.</i>, page 491.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> The same can be said of the Israelite community.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> Negativity does not imply unreality.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12" href="#FNanchor_12_12" class="label">[12]</a> The way in which they are compulsory is not quite simple; but +the fact is that when the new institutions are framed men will perhaps +get their political rights as members of the corporations.</p></div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX"> + INDEX + </h2> +</div> + + +<ul class="index"> + <li class="ifrst">Alberti, Leone Battista, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Alfieri, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ardigo, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aretino, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ariosto, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Aristotle, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, + <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Bacon, Francis, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, + <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bacon, Roger, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bainville, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bayle, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Beltramelli, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Berkeley, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bodin, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Boccacio, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bassuet, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Bismarck, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Cairoli, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Campanella, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carducci, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carlo, Alberto, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cavour, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cherbury, Herbert of, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Corneille, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cola di Rienzo, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Costa, Andria, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Carradini, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Crispi, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Croce, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170–188</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, + <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cromwell, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cumberland, <a href="#Page_141">141</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Cuoco, Vincenzo, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, + <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Dante, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, + <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + + <li class="indx">D’Annunzio, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx">D’Azeglio Massimo, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Depretis, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + + <li class="indx">De Ruggiero, G., <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx">De Sanctis, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, + <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, + <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Descartes, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114–124</a>, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Ercole, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Federzoni, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ficino Marsilio, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fiorentino, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Frederick II, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Fichte, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Garibaldi, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gentile, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, + <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188–210</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Gioberti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Ghibellines, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Giolitti, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Grotius, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Guarini, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Guicciardini, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Guelphs, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Hegel, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hobbes, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, + <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, + <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Hume, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Johnson, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Kant, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, + <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Louis XIV, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Landino, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Lévy Bruhl, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Leibniz, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Locke, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Machiavelli, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, + <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, + <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mâle, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mazzini, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, + <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Malespini, A., <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Maritain, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Marx, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Monnier, Ph., <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Melzi, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + + <li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>Mill, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_166">166</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Minghetti, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Montaigne, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Montesquieu, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Mussolini, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, + <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Nitti, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Newton, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Orange, William, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Pascal, <a href="#Page_146">146</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pagano, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plato, <a href="#Page_135">135</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Plutarch, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Poliziano, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Petrarch, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Piccolomini, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Pisano Nicolo, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Rosmini, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Reggio, E., <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Rousseau, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Salandra, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Saitta, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + + <li class="indx">San Giuliano, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sarfatti, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Savonarola, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Scholasticism, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, + <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Shaftesbury, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sonnino, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Solmi, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spaventa, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Spinoza, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Sturzo, and his party, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. Anselm, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. Augustin, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + + <li class="indx">St. Thomas, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Tasso, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Toland, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Tocco, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Vico, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124–136</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, + <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Villari, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + + <li class="indx">Vittorio, Emmanuele, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + + + <li class="ifrst">Wildon Carr, <a href="#Page_190">190</a></li> +</ul> + + +<p class="center"> +MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY<br> +THE GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED, LETCHWORTH, HERTS +</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_notes" style="margin-top:0.5em"> + Transcriber’s notes + </h2> +<p>No attempt has been made to correct or normalize the spelling of proper +names or non-English text. The index is in original order. Footnotes +have been gathered at the end of the text, before the index. The included cover +is a modified version of the book’s title page and is placed in the public domain. +</p> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77090 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |