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diff --git a/77090-0.txt b/77090-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..35ac0d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/77090-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6828 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77090 *** + + + + + + THE + PEDIGREE OF + FASCISM + + A POPULAR ESSAY ON THE WESTERN + PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS + + + BY + ALINE LION + _Lady Margaret Hall, Oxon._ + + + LONDON: + SHEED & WARD + 31, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 4 + + + + + TO + JOHN WALTER, ESQ., + TO WHOSE QUESTIONS I OWE + THE FIRST IDEA OF THIS BOOK. + + A. L. + + + _First Published_, 1927 + + + + + CONTENTS + + + Part I + + THE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. Is Fascism a Revolution? 3 + + II. Liberalism in Italy 10 + + III. Nationalism and Socialism 23 + + IV. The European War and its Effects 37 + + + Part II + + PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + + I. Philosophical Antecedents 58 + + II. Humanism and Renaissance 70 + + III. The Seventeenth Century 92 + + IV. The Seventeenth Century in France 114 + + V. Giambattista Vico 125 + + VI. Illuminism in England and France 137 + + VII. Nineteenth Century in Italy 154 + + VIII. Benedetto Croce 170 + + IX. Giovanni Gentile 189 + + X. Benito Mussolini 211 + + Index 235 + + + + +AUTHOR’S NOTE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + + ALINE LION. + + _Lady Margaret Hall, + Oxford._ + + + + +Part I + +THE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +IS FASCISM A REVOLUTION? + + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +Citizenship becomes, finally, with the whole of political reality, a +moral, spiritual and Christian reality, and the 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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +LIBERALISM IN ITALY + + +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. + +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. 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 _gentlemen_ 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? + +Thus a free hand was guaranteed to the small number 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +When a bullet has hit the bull’s-eye it has fulfilled its purpose, and +stays there in helpless immobility or falls 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +What was to be expected under such conditions? The wonder is that the +nation did not go to pieces, and that the 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. + +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. + +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 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 _ex tempore_; 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. + +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 to enthrone capital and invite thereby the advent of +Socialism. + +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. + +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 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. + +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, _reprimere non prevenire_; an excellent motto perhaps, +when the citizens are used to the exercise of their 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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +The ideal of the Risorgimento had been realised, and as the new +leaders _had no new ideals_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 Liberalism had come out of a long historical evolution. + +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. + +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 +_vir_, 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. 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. + +The Nationalists’ idea of a nation was as materialist as their aims +were idealist.[1] 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 _one out of many_, or he is _the one central reality_. +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 ACTUAL 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 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. + +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 _latifondi_, +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 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. + +Thank God, however, “_le coeur a des raisons que la raison ne connaît +pas_,” 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 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. + +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. + +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 _does_ 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 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.[2] 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. + +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 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 _exclusively for thy material self, but for +the State, which is that same empirical self plus its transcendental +complement_.” Hence ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the +work of man, slave of his material needs, but of man transcending them, +_without disregarding them_, however, and lifting thereby his daily +occupation to the dignity of moral realisation of his own economic +value. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE EUROPEAN WAR AND ITS EFFECTS + + +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. + +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 +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. + +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.[3] On the first of August Italy declared +neutrality and on that day the _Giornale d’Italia_ clearly stated that +such neutrality was not like that of Holland or Switzerland, and above +all should not be considered as definitive. + +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. + +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) 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 _De Monarchia_, 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 Florence, was +honoured with the unlimited trust of the _Gonfaloniere a vita_ 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. + +Dino was elected _Gonfaloniere a vita_ 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 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. + +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. +_Bisogna riscontrarsi coi propri tempi_ and to do so he recommends the +statesman again and again to get direct information of that which he +calls _la verità effettuale delle cose_, 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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: + + “Ei dipinga il trionfo dell ’Italia + Assorta novella tra le genti.” + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +The several Treaties of peace, the conferences of the Allies, were +a long sequence of disappointments to the 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 _Popolari_—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.[4] Naturally, +these 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. + +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 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. + +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 _Popolari_. 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 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. + +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. + +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 _mine_. 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 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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +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. + +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 +_Salvatore della Patria_ 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 _even +against the state_ if it was necessary. + +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 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 _Popolari_ or Socialists, who were returned in the same +proportion as they had been in the last House. + +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 _Popolari_. (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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +Part II + +PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS + + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 of +countries, and the absolute necessity of their political independence. + +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. + +Few legacies of the first centuries of modern thought 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. + + * * * * * + +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 +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. + +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 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. + +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 _veritas filia temporis_. Thus he proclaims that which +will be the motto of every true Italian thinker; reality is essentially +and above all, Historical Reality. + +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 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 _Empirical Reality_. + +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, 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 _Cogito, ergo sum_. 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 _tabula rasa_ 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; 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. + +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. + +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 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. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HUMANISM AND RENAISSANCE SHAPING THE HISTORICAL MIND OF ITALY + + +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. + +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 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 _in +Domnica_ 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. + +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 +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. + +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 _Municipium_, 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 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. + +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 “_a cultu +atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt_.” 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 Assembly +of Elders, very much like the Senate of old, with various dependent +_clientele_ that recall the _gentes_; 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. + +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 _Filosofia del +Diritto_ 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 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 +_we_ in talking of the ancient Romans, and consider Latin as their own +language. Ricordano Malespini says that Frederick II spoke “_la nostra +lingua latina e il nostro volgare_.” They had two national languages, +Latin and the vernacular, the latter itself a degenerate offspring of +Latin, known as the “_romano rustico_,” 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. + +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 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. + +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 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 _Signorie_ involved them in +a common downfall, the consciousness of an unbroken descent from Rome +could never after be erased from Italian mentality. + +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 _Collegia_, +the rule over the barbarians, were the reward of the Romans, not the +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. + +Dante, in his preface to the _De Monarchia_, 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 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. + +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 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. + +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. 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. + +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 +_Canzone di Signori d’Italia_ 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 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. + +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, +consoling themselves with their real intellectual and artistic +superiority for their political humiliation. + +In 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, meeting with no +resistance worth mentioning. It is not surprising, since the despairing +cry of Boiardo + + _“Mentre che io canto, O Dio Redentore. + Vedo l’Italia tutta a fiamma e a foco”_ + +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 + + _“asperi + furore militis tremendo + Turribus ausoniis ruinam”_ + +and with all the selfishness of unconscious indifference + + _“Rursus quid hostis prospiciat sibi + Me nulla tangat cura, sub arbuto + Iacentem aquae ad murmur cadentis.”_ + +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: + + _“Est mea nunc Glycerae, mea nunc est cura Lycoris, + Lyda modo meus est, est modo Phyllis amor.”_ + +Reality is a horrible dream, “_improba seclis conditio!_” he is shocked +that + + _“nuper ab occiduis illatum gentibus, olim + pressa quibus nostro colla fuere iugo.”_ + +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.[5] + +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 “_magna parens virum_” 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. + +He, like all the intellectuals of the period, would have said “_we_” in +speaking of the Romans, and he might have used the phrase of Leonardo +Aretino, “_Graecos ΠΟΛΙΣ, NOSTROS CIVITAS appellavisse_,” 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 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. + +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. + +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, “_vituperio del mondo_,” 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 +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +Time and the works of Bruno and Campanella, stripped of their heretical +outlook, were to further in the mind of 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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND AND ITALY + + +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. + +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, 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. + +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 _jus civile_ and _jus naturale_, and on the +mediæval notion of _sociability_, 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. + +According to Grotius such _jus naturale_—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 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 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 _jus naturale_, and +the state must originate from an agreement of its components. + +If Grotius had been able to realise theoretically the immanence of +the _jus naturale_ 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 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. + +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 _Leviathan_ is the conception of a man to +whom philosophy was _doctrina corporum_. 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 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. + +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 _concordia +multorum_, 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 _Leviathan_ 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. + +In his opposition to the kingdom by the grace of God the father of the +_Leviathan_ 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 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. + +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 _Leviathan_ engulfs all +rights and interests; at the same 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 _Leviathan_ 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. + +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 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 _corruttela_ of Italy was the +absence of national and religious consciousness, and he had pointed a +way out of it. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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 _Storia d’Italia_ 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. + +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 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 _Jerusalemme liberata_ of Tasso, for it began with the +_Arcadia_ of Sannazaro and ended with the _Arcadia_ 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. + +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 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 _Deux ex +Machina_) 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 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. + +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. + +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 _virtus_, +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Hobbes, rejecting sovereignty by the grace of God to enforce his own +conception of the sovereignty of his _Leviathan_ grounded on the +_Bellum omnium contra omnes_, 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 _quidditas_ 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 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +France, Spain, England, Germany and the Netherland, 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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE + + +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. + +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. + +Monarchy was indeed just as absolute in Spain and in Austria. But +in both countries it remained comparatively feudal. So that the +_bourgeois_ origin ascribed by M. Bainville to the Capetian Monarchy, +its intimate relations with the Middle Class amounting to a sort of +mutual league 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. + +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. + +“_L’Etat c’est moi_,” says Louis XIV. “_Cogito ergo sum_,” 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 +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. + +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 _Horace_ and _Le Cid_. 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 _l’Etat c’est +moi_; 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 perfect. Perfection is static and cannot, +therefore, belong to life, which moves towards perfection but never is +perfect. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 far from perfect, can take his _Discours +sur la Méthode_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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 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 _seems_ 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +GIAMBATTISTA VICO + + +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. + +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. + +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 +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 _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_. + +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 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. + +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. + +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, _Nihil est in +intellectu qui prius non fuerit in sensu_, 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. + +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 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. + +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 _a natura præstantiori +dictata_. The real ground of society is, therefore, moral, and as such +essentially spiritual. + +Yet at first sight Vico’s view of the origin of law and society +appears very much akin to that of “jus naturalism”; 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. + +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 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 _We_ without the rest of +the world in opposition to which we are _We_, 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +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 NATURAL, 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 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. + +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. + +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. 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 _jus naturale philosophorum_ 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. + +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. + +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 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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ILLUMINISM IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE + + +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 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. + +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. + +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 _Pure Act_ and of its practical +offspring the _Fondamenti della Filosofia del Diritto_, 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. + +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 + + Meliora video; deteriora sequor. + +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 _jus naturale_ 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. + +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 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 _lex naturae_ 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 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. + +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 _tabula rasa_ 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. + +This natural religiousness had had its first English assertor in +Herbert of Cherbury. To him man’s soul is far from being _tabula rasa_; +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 _actions_ must be subject but +never his _opinions_; whilst he limited his 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 pre-Christian forms of religion +had sprung they had not the slightest suspicion. + +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 _caritas sibi_ 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 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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +The French mathematical mentality, after having 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 +_Moi haissable_ 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. + +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 the super-rationality of the Revelation is an illusion. +In perfect sincerity he could say _credo quia absurdum_, and like +Tertullian proclaim definitely the divorce of science from religion, of +rationality from irrationality. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Until Rousseau appeared the writers on political matters had been +either followers of the _jus naturalism_ or of the constitutionalist +schools. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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 the single wills. Thus it is that he gave us the system which +enthrones quantity while it aims at quality. + +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 _sine qua non_ 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. + +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 _Liberty and Law_, 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 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY + + +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 _De Antiquissima Italorum +Sapientia_, and Hegel’s most original conception, forty-five years +before Stuttgart had the honour of producing him, was acted upon in the +_Scienza Nova_. 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. + +The greatest man who reacted against Rationalism and 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 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. + +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. + +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 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. _The love of work_ 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. + +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 _Giornale d’Italia_. Four +articles written in 1804 are probably those read and meditated upon by +Mazzini and are of such a quality that they could be 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. + +Again in 1804, reviewing in his _Giornale d’Italia_ 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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Neither Cuoco nor Mazzini were philosophers, their 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 +_Giornale d’Italia_ 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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Bertrando Spaventa taught in the university of Napoli, 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 _Cogito_ are exploited to the full; whereas they +had been left aside by Hegel. Vico’s _factum et verum convertuntur_, +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 +_fieri et verum convertuntur_ which is the adequate expression of the +historical dialectic. + +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 _Storia della +letteratura Italiana_ 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. + +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 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. + +The _Storia della letteratura Italiana_, 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +BENEDETTO CROCE + + +Benedetto Croce’s opposition to Mussolini’s government is so well +known that to include him among the precursors of Fascism may seem +strange. But here Fascism is considered as the political expression of +the intellectual or rather spiritual forces which are bringing Italy +to the fore and determining the growth of the Italian mind. Hence the +necessity of including Croce in this account of the pedigree of the +tendencies which have been realised in politics by Benito Mussolini. +This naturally does not imply that all the ideas acted upon by Fascists +are to be found in the theories of Croce, but that certain needs of +Italian minds, more or less consciously expressed during the eighteenth +and nineteenth centuries, had been formulated and worked out by Croce, +who had either found them in de Sanctis or had developed them on lines +suggested to him by that great critic. + +One of the points on which this penetrating and far seeing man had most +emphatically insisted was that the vague idealism which swept over +some European artistic centres during the last century was alien to +the Italian mind. The assertions that he met with from many quarters +as to the impossibility of the artist’s realising his ideal was +treated by him as exotic nonsense. An ineffable poem is not a poem at +all, a harmony defying expression is not a harmony at all, a vision +transcending colours and lines, shadow and light is not a vision at +all. Italians had to be reminded of the necessity of being realistic; +their greatness as well as the greatness of ancient Rome had always +rested upon a sound sense of the relation between means and end. He +described the Italian genius as a disposition rather to identify the +end and means than to fit the end to the means. He enforced this +claim, not only for artistic creation, but for historical researches +or theoretical speculation as well. He had evidently realised the +short-comings of men such as Gioberti and Rosmini. It was much +better to start on particular problems with an adequate preparation, +and develop them into speculative theories, than to start with an +indifferent preparation on vital questions and come to inadequate +conclusions. + +Now if there could be in history such a thing as good luck, the +friendship of Croce and Gentile, their flourishing at the same time, +could be considered the most wonderful piece of good luck for Italy. By +luck, however, we usually mean a certain combination of circumstances +escaping our attention. Moreover, their being contemporaries of +Mussolini, the _one_ man fit to create a political world capable of +bringing into living reality their most difficult conceptions—very +often, in fact generally, without knowing anything of their theories—is +a sufficient proof that there is no possibility here of invoking luck +as an explanation of the concomitance of Croce’s and Gentile’s activity +with that of Mussolini. It is much nearer to historical truth to state +that Italy has reached one of those stages of her history in which +she has always yielded a rich harvest of men of genius, speculative, +political or artistic. + +Any and every practical activity, says Croce, implies theoretical +activity, since no action can be performed without knowledge. This +however is not to be separated from the action; for the two forms +of the spirit are distinct, not separate. Thus in any action, while +the practical activity is explicit, the theoretical activity which +is knowledge is implicit; in fact they are _concomitant_. The man +of thought can no more think than walk without using his will; the +importance of the will is just as great for the thinker or the artist +as it is for the so-called practical man. But it is only through the +wearing of the Pragmatist’s blinkers that one can be brought to see in +the will the root of truth. + +A distinction is, however, made by Croce between the knowledge required +for a practical act, such as the disposing of a regiment of infantry +for a review, and that of the philosopher or the artist. The one +is an intuition, the other is a conception, and to make the ground +of a volition you want both, for the combination is _historical_ +knowledge. There, obviously enough, Croce reveals himself a true son of +Machiavelli, Vico, and de Sanctis. The Florentine secretary had been +hinting as much when he insisted on the necessity of our knowing the +_actual truth about things_ (since _human things are always moving_), +in order to govern _in harmony with the times_. + +This _historical_ knowledge is not an idea that will surprise after all +that has been said about the constant tendency of Italy’s best thinkers +to test the practicability of any concept on the concrete ground of +history. To them, the natural realm of action being history, it was +manifest that any knowledge or theory is liable to be acted upon only +in so far as it is historical; and such knowledge becomes, under the +name of condition of fact, the ground of Croce’s conception of the +necessity and liberty of man’s will. + +To the generally accepted ideas of means and end Croce was to bring a +most radical change. First he proceeds to prove that what is known as +the end, the purpose, or the aim is not to be distinguished from the +will. When I wash my hands my purpose is obviously that I should have +them clean; but then it is equally obvious that this means that I want +them to be clean. Turning to the means, the washing of my hands in +order to have them clean, supposes a condition of fact which means the +availableness of soap and water, for I could not will to wash my hands +if I had neither soap nor water. These material means are known by me +to be available when I make up my mind to wash my hands in order to get +them clean. So that purpose and means are all included in my act of +will, which is nothing more nor less than the actual act of washing my +hands. If the situation of fact did not include soap and water I could +at best _wish_ to wash them, never _will_ to do so. + +What is consequently to be rejected once for all is the idea of a +definite plan that would not allow the taking into consideration of +the continual variation of the means. Thus the men of the Risorgimento +had to vary their purpose and to reconsider the means to attain it +after and before each campaign, having to take as their actual will +only that the realisation of which was in harmony with the then actual +situation of fact. So that we can say that their real will, the will +which created modern Italy, was exclusively that general will which was +individualised in their many splendid deeds of heroism or renunciations +of their former plans or ideals; these had been formed without the +historical knowledge which alone could make them realise what was the +situation of fact. + +Now a good deal of admiration is usually bestowed on people of +good-will and of pure intentions. Here, however, the very existence of +such good-will, such pure intentions, is denied. The longing of the +man who wishes he could alter the present state of public affairs in +his country is not at all to be considered as a will to do so. For he +does not will to do so as long as he thinks it is impossible. A wish +of this kind has no value either economically or morally. Whatever the +circumstances, if he knows them well, he will know that there must be +at least one thing that he can do instead of deprecatingly shaking his +head as he reads the paper by the fire. When Machiavelli tried to form +a Tuscan Militia to free Florence from her trouble, he did not succeed; +but when he left his boisterous and rustic friends over their wine +and retired to the small library of his modest villa, he did the only +civic duty that was left to him to perform; he plunged his lancet into +the corrupted body of his country and prepared the way for the coming +centuries. Criticism, that is to say negative criticism, when the +country is in danger, or suggestion as to the ideal thing to be done, +unless they are part of a plan of reform so in keeping with facts that +it can be immediately acted upon, are merely pretending to be acts of +will. I cannot keep by my fireside or lean at my window deploring the +things which are going on and pretend that “I will to alter them.” + +Yet it is often said that we can will the good in the abstract, while +unable to will it in the concrete, and this means simply that we may +have good intentions and yet behave badly. The answer to this has been +already given; it may be well, however, to state it once more. Willing +in the abstract, willing without acting accordingly, is equivalent to +not-willing, since, according to Croce, a volition implies a situation +historically determined from which it arises as an act equally +determined and concrete. + +The importance assigned in this theory to the knowledge of the actual +situation of fact, and consequently to the historical judgment, +invests with the greatest importance the possibility of error. Such +possibility is, however, excluded by Croce from the theoretical realm +of mind; for lack of knowledge, ignorance, is not error. It belongs to +practical activity and we cannot err unwillingly. All errors are due +to an interference of the will with our apprehension of reality; and +as any volition is an assertion of our liberty we are responsible for +it. Everyone knows that immoderate passions or illegitimate interests +lead insidiously into error; that we err in order to be quick and +finish, or to obtain for ourselves undeserved repose—that we err by +acquiescence in old ideas, that is to say, in order not to allow +ourselves to be disturbed in our repose, and to prolong it unduly, and +so on. The possibility of erring in good faith is disposed of in this +way by rejecting the possibility of an error not due to our own will. +It thus becomes perfectly legitimate and wise to use practical measures +to induce those who err to correct themselves, punishing them when this +can be of any use. Croce’s defence of the Holy Inquisition, be it of +the old Romans against the Christians, of Catholics against heretics, +or of Protestants against Catholics must not be found surprising. It is +the logical conclusion of his view on the responsibility for error; +and he is not to be found shirking the consequences of his system +any more than the Fascists. For it is hardly necessary to point out +that their abhorrence of all vagueness and indefiniteness is bound to +determine responsibilities in practical activity and consequences in +theoretical activity. The necessity of having a single man responsible +for anyone of the public services has been mostly realised in +Anglo-Saxon countries; but where bureaucracy flourishes it is usually a +Board, a Committee, in a word an anonymous body which takes decisions +and steps for which nobody in particular is responsible. Therefore, to +any complaint the answer must be “we thought; the committee held; it +was generally supposed; the majority came to the conclusion ... that +...” In such case nobody stands responsible; and each member of the +Committee, or Board, throws on the others all the weight of the unhappy +step or decision. + +With Croce’s theories such vagueness is destroyed at its root. The +will of the people who take a step is their taking of the step, and +both action and volition spring from their historical knowledge of +the actual situation of fact. Such knowledge is therefore part of +the action. The responsibility thus includes the assuming of the +information necessary to the taking of the decision. Naturally this +has always been the case, where man’s responsibility is really of +importance. On board a ship, for instance, the officer in command has +always known that his responsibility includes this knowledge. Ignorance +of fact is the greatest fault whenever a decision has to be taken, +whether the importance of the decision be great or small. This however, +must not be held to imply the judging of an action according to its +success. Historical judgments are not to be passed on the result of +past actions; historical judgment must be passed on acts, not on facts. + +The distinction between action and event is by Croce emphasised as +being grounded on the distinction between the act of one man and the +act of the whole; and one might say that the action depends on the will +of man and the event on the will of God. According to this theory the +action of the man who shoots at Mussolini is the manifestation of his +will, and his failure is the manifestation of God’s will; because the +will of the whole, including the will of the chauffeur, who is driving +Mussolini’s car, the wills of the people crowding the edge of the +street, the wills of the guards told off to keep the road clear for the +car and the wills of the Fascists thronging to catch a glimpse of their +idol, which are also volition-actions, determine the event; and this +is usually termed Providence, or the rationality of history. Thus when +foreigners, even those who do not approve of Mussolini’s government, +and Italians, either religiously or coldly, repeat at each new attempt, +“the hand of God is on his head,” the conviction which they express is +perfectly in keeping with Croce’s view, and is by no means equivalent +to fatalism. + +To express this relation of action to event in a less mystical form +it ought to be said that the volition-action of any single man is his +contribution to the volitions of the whole universe. On this point +Gentile produced another theory some eight or ten years after Croce had +given a systematic form to this doctrine which had been implicit in all +his former works. This double contribution of Italy to the conception +of conduct, if not an entirely new idea of liberty, provides two +very original views on that problem, one of those which have always +tormented humanity. + +The first great step made by Croce was the consequences of his having +denied any possible distinction between the volition and the action; +for thus he was able to assert the oneness of liberty. We must no +longer speak of a liberty of will and a liberty of action. + +He quotes here as an example the case of a paralytic gentleman carried +into the square in his servant’s arms during the revolt of 1542 and +found after the tumult on the top of a church-tower. The terror had +aroused in him such a will that he had climbed there. As a rule the +paralytic does not will because he knows he cannot, what he can do at +the most is to wish that he was in a different condition. It is quite +inexact to say that he who is threatened and yields to the threat +is deprived of his freedom of action. The old formula _coacti tamen +volunt_ says as much. Whenever people have been clamouring for greater +freedom of action, what they really wanted was to have the conditions +of fact altered. “Everyone knows,” says Croce,[6] “that no _vultus +instantis tyranni_ can extinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler, +be he ever so strong and violent, can prevent a rebellion, or when all +else fails, a noble death outwardly affirming the freedom within.” + +Every step onward in Croce’s theories is admirably consequent upon the +statements that have preceded it. As man in his theoretical activity +apprehends the world and by knowing it makes it his, so through +practical activity he collaborates in its creation. The second being +grounded in the first, a will independent of knowing is unthinkable. +The blind will is not will; the true will has eyes.[7] Without this +it would be difficult to see how actions could be both free and +necessary. Indeed one can say that up to these Italian theories all the +contentions on liberty were waged between two tendencies, one leading +to the ever-recurrent conclusions of Determinism, the other to the +assertion of free will. To detect that actions are at once free and +determined it was necessary that knowledge of the actual conditions of +fact should be considered as the essential ground of any volition. + +Volition thus is not considered as arising in the void, but in a +definite situation, under definite historical conditions, in relation +to an event which cannot be eliminated. When the situation changes the +act of will changes. This amounts to saying that it is necessitated by +the situation in which it arises. But it also means that such act of +will is free. For it does not make one with the situation, neither does +it produce a duplicate of it. The volition-action produces something +different, that is, something new; therefore it is initiative, +creation, an act of freedom. Were it not so, a volition would not be an +act of will and reality would not change through the action of men, it +would not become, would not grow upon itself. + +“This consciousness of necessity and liberty inseparably united is +found in all men of action, in all political geniuses, who are never +inert or reckless: they feel themselves at once bound and not bound; +they always conform to facts, but always rise above them. The fatuous, +on the other hand, oscillate between the passive acceptance of the +given situation and the sterile attempt to overleap it, that is, to +leap over their own shadow. They are consequently now inert, now rash. +They, therefore, do not fix or conclude anything, they do not act; or, +if they do, it is always according to what of the actual situation they +have understood, and what of initiative they have displayed.”[8] + +If Benedetto Croce had been a prophet he could not have better +contrasted Mussolini’s way of proceeding, always surrounded by experts +and never the slave of data, with the way in which former governments +proceeded in Italy, when ministers thought that by the grace of the +people they had received some sort of super-natural light to discharge +their duty. No practical activity could have been as vigorous as +the theoretical reaction of Croce and Gentile against the futility, +the abstractness, the pessimism, and above all the materialism that +were slowly but surely destroying the third Italy! But their joint +philosophical campaign, however brilliant it may have been, could not +arouse the working masses to the new gospel of civic life. This had to +be undertaken by a man of faith, endowed with the gifts that make the +statesman and the popular leader. But the fact that three such men are +contemporaries and that without previous arrangement the theoretical +activity of the two former coincide with the practical activity of the +third is a good argument on behalf of Croce’s theory of the freedom +and necessity of man’s action. The situation of fact is the same for +all three, and they therefore arise for the same purpose although they +endeavour to realise it through very different means. + +Since man’s action, his volition-action, is free, the question whether +an individual has or has not been free to do what he has done is +equivalent to asking if he has done it or not. Thus again the character +of responsibility is emphasised in all human actions. Croce objects +very strongly to the way in which criminal lawyers put a poor madman +on a level with the guilty, for he who is mad is partially dead. +Practical good and evil can be now identified with will and anti-will, +with freedom and anti-freedom, with the reality of the will and its +unreality. For evil, when real, does not exist save in the good, which +opposes and conquers it; it is, therefore, merely the negative of good, +and it would be impossible to find an act of will distinctly willing +that which is evil as such. A man may want to intoxicate himself with +alcohol, but in the act of so doing he expects the warmth that will +spread in his limbs and the delightful oblivion that will free him +from all cares. Hence that which he expects from drink is good. Such +negativity of evil has always been current among theologians even +before the days of Thomas Aquinas; but the theory deduced by Croce from +it is quite original. + +All practical activity is either economic, or both economic and moral. +The economic activity is that which wills and effects only what +corresponds to the condition of fact in which a man finds himself; the +ethical activity, although it corresponds to these conditions, is that +which transcends them. + +Therefore, any act of the individual’s will is economic, but to be +moral it must be an act of the universal will. The former is judged by +the greater or less coherence of the action in itself, the other by +its greater or less coherence in respect to the universal end which +transcends the individual. No act can be moral without being economic, +for however universal it may be in its meaning my action must be mine +in order to be something concrete and individually determined. In +practical life we do not meet with morality as a universal, but always +with a determinate moral volition. On the other hand, it is easy to +see that our actions always obey a rational law, even when moral law +is suppressed; so that, when every inclination that transcends the +individual has been set aside, it is necessary to will this or that +coherently, not to oscillate between two or more volitions at the same +time. And if we succeed in really obtaining our desire, if, while the +moral consciousness is for the moment suspended within us, we abandon +ourselves to the execution of a project of vengeance and execute a +masterpiece of ability, even when, in this case, human society does +not approve, we for our part feel satisfied, at least so long as the +suspension of the moral consciousness lasts; for we have done what +we wanted to do, we have tasted, though but for a little while, the +pleasure of the gods. + +The economic form of activity we easily recognise as individual, +hedonistic, utilitarian, and economic; the moral form is just as +easily identified. To be moral, an action must first satisfy us as +individuals occupying a definite point of time and space, and must also +satisfy in us the transcendental being who defies time and space. Croce +having made this distinction absolutely clear, could face the question +concerning the nature of law. + +To him law is a _volitional act_ concerning a _class_ of actions. +Therefore, where the volitional element or the element of class is +wanting, there cannot be law. Obviously, however, the law is abstract; +the act of will is, according to Croce, always of the individual, +and the element of class is sufficient to deprive the law of anything +like concrete life, be it an individual law or a social law. Since +the freedom of human actions is logically bound up with his notion +of practical activity, it is impossible to object that there is an +essential difference between the programme of life laid down by any +single man for himself, the programme of action laid down by any +association, and the laws laid down by the state, the first being +merely a matter of acceptance and the last relying on compulsion. +Indeed, it is obvious enough that by compulsion one usually means +the alternative of complying with the law or facing a penalty. Such +alternative is the ground of a choice, and the citizen usually chooses, +but always freely chooses, to obey the law rather than endure the +penalty. The fact that some men do rebel is sufficient to prove that +freedom cannot be abolished by compulsion. + +Then what is the essential difference between individual and social +law? An attempt is usually made to differentiate them by saying that +the latter has emanated from and is sustained by a _supreme power_. But +where is the seat of this supreme power? Surely not in anything like a +super-individual, dominating individuals. It is only to be found in the +individuals themselves. And in this case its power and value correspond +with the power of the individuals who compose it; it is the law of a +circle empirically considered to be larger and stronger, but whose will +is law in so far as the individuals composing it spontaneously conform +to such a will, because they recognise the convenience of doing so. +Monarchs who believed themselves to be all-powerful, have realised +at certain moments that their power rested in a universal consensus +of opinion, failing which their power vanished, or was reduced to a +gesture of solitary command, not far from being ridiculous. + +Going back to the definition of laws as _volitional_ acts concerning +classes of actions, Croce shows that the so-called laws of nature or +of grammar are no laws at all, because the act of will is lacking in +them. Neither is the jurist, quietly elaborating rules from cases, a +legislator. His excogitations will have to wait for a man of will, who +alone, and _sword in hand_, will endow them with the character of law. +On the other hand the so-called moral law, economic law, are no laws +at all inasmuch as they lack the element of class! “Will the good,” +“Will the true,” “Will the useful,” are all statements in which a +volition is expressed, but then the object of such will is invariably +the _universal_, whereas laws have for object something _general_; a +_class_, not a concept. In short moral law, logical law, or economic +law ought to be called principles instead of laws. + +The character of laws being general and not universal, is perfectly in +keeping with their mutability; since actual conditions are constantly +changing. It is necessary to add new laws to the old, to retouch these +or to abolish them altogether. Philosophically speaking, there is but +one cause of changing the laws, viz., the will that in its liberty +produces the new law in new conditions of fact. The question whether +we should recognise Conservatism or Revolution as the fundamental +concept of practical life, does not concern Croce in the least. For him +every Conservative is also Revolutionary, since he is always obliged +to adapt to the new facts the law that he wishes to preserve. Every +Revolutionary is also a Conservative, since he is obliged to start +from certain laws that he preserves, at any rate provisionally, that +he may change others and substitute for them new laws, which he in +his turn intends to preserve. Cavour, to use Croce’s own example, was +a Conservative in respect of certain problems, and revolutionary in +respect of others, to such a degree that he seemed to the Mazzinians to +be a Conservative and to the clericals and legitimists a Revolutionary. + +The demand for an eternal code, a universal, rational, or natural +justice, in its claim to fix the transitory, is in open contradiction +with the historical and, therefore, contingent character of laws. +Were Natural Law permitted to enforce itself once for all we should +witness, with the formation and application of the eternal code, the +cessation _ipso facto_ of Development, the end of History, the death of +Life and the dissolution of Reality. Such an end of the world cannot +take place because, if it is possible to develop theories which are in +contradiction to life, it is quite impossible to make them concrete +and actual: God, that is to say Reality, does not allow this to be +done. Of such theories the best examples are surely Absolute Monarchy +and Communism. Both as an ideal present themselves as an absolute, a +perfect form of government and, therefore, would be, if realised, the +end of life. Anything perfect in the way of political institutions +would put a stop to any further progress since the new needs spring +from the actual short-comings of present institutions, and from the new +needs the new projects which will bring about new institutions. + +The most intelligent Communists know nowadays that the historical +necessities which have brought their party to the fore were economic +and that that which has been done in passing, such as the improvement +of working-class conditions, both materially and intellectually, is +indeed what should have been its real aim. But Providence permits +men to act upon their own motives; and well it may, since the will +of the whole can always have the last word. Communists have done all +they that have in the belief that it was done only in the process of +getting nearer to their ultimate aim, the abolition of classes. The +kings of France who, little by little, destroyed the Feudal order, and +by so doing brought about the unification of France and the rise of +the _bourgeoisie_, may have thought that they were merely working for +the establishment of an absolute monarchy. Their real work, that is to +say the task which was laid out for them by Providence, was to create +a great nation and destroy Feudalism in France through the necessity +in which they found themselves of getting the support of the middle +and lower class in order to destroy the petty sovereignties of the +great vassals. But when this was achieved the absoluteness in their +conception of monarchy was bound to be the cause of its fall. For had +it been possible it would have meant the cessation of development. +A form of government if it is absolute is perfect, and it is the +imperfection which calls for further development. Now Communism makes +the same mistake when aiming at bringing about so perfect a society +that it would not even need a government. If this came to be it would +be the end of the world. + +But this is anticipating Mussolini’s realisation of the fact, and it +may be sufficient to state that Croce’s ideas, stated here together, +were scattered explicitly in several essays published between 1897 +and 1900, and collected for the first time in 1907 while they were +implicitly pervading the whole of his own writings and those of +innumerable journalists as well as running on the lips of the +Professors who taught in upper schools and universities. + +On this point of the essential mutability of laws and institutions, +Croce lays a great stress. “We often meet in history with projects +of new laws which are said to be better than the old, or good by +comparison with those judged more or less bad, the new ones being +proposed as _natural_ or _rational_ justice, whilst the old ones +are rejected as unnatural or irrational, just as passionate erotic +temperaments, uninstructed by the experience of their past, believe +with the utmost seriousness that their new love will be constant and +eternal. Such ‘Natural laws’ are historical, are transitory, like all +others. All men know how, in certain times, and places, religious +tolerance, freedom of trade, private property, constitutional monarchy, +have been proclaimed eternal, and in other times and places the +extirpation of unbelievers, commercial protection, communism, the +republic and anarchy.”[9] + +From what has been said it might be taken that Croce has been merely +destroying the religious reverence of his countrymen for the actual +apparel of law. Nothing can be farther from truth. His contention was +that laws being manifestations of man’s will must change with the +changes in facts. The ideas of the eighteenth or nineteenth century +can no longer be a living reality. The reality which he denies to the +law itself he recognises as belonging to the single act done under the +law, that is to say to the execution of the law. The indubitable truth, +as to the necessity of acting in each case according to historical +necessities, has induced people at different times and in different +places, to proclaim the sheer uselessness of law. Benedetto Croce is +most definitely against such theories. According to him, the best +arguments to be used against them can be drawn from history itself, and +if they do not rigorously demonstrate the necessity of laws they show +well enough that such necessity has been generally felt in all lands +and in all times. The necessity of laws, ordinances, justice, and the +state, appears at all points of human history. Better a bad government +than no government at all; and those who declaim against laws can well +do so at their ease, for the law surrounds, protects, and preserves +their life for them. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +GIOVANNI GENTILE + + +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 +_sub quadam specie Æternitatis_. 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. + +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. + +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 a current of spiritual life which +partakes both of theory and practice—blending them perfectly. + +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. + +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, _is_ +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 _spiritual_ 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. + + Master: Why do you come to school? + + Pupil: Because my mother sent me (—or—to learn to read and write.) + + Master: 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. + + Pupil: But since I have got to come, I want to learn. + + Master: And what do you suppose all the others come for? + + Pupil: Why, sir, to learn. + + Master: And tell me, what must I do if you are all to learn? + + Pupil: I suppose you must teach us. + + Master: Well now, what is a school? + + Pupil: This is a school. + + Master: You mean the building? + + Pupil: Yes, of course. + + Master: Don’t you think I could teach and you could learn in a + field? + + Pupil: Well, I suppose we could. + + Master: 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. + _We_ make the school. For if to-morrow the authorities were to send + us to a barn and put some poor people here—— + + Pupil (interrupting): Sir, I know, it would be a poorhouse. + + Master: And the barn where we went? + + Pupil: It would be the school. + + Master: Right. Then who makes the school? + + Pupil: The teacher and the pupils. + + Master: 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. + + Pupil: Of course we could. + + Master: And I might say to you: “Come this afternoon, all of you, + and let us do it.” + + Pupil: Very well, we would come, at least those who live near. + + Master: And we would start teacher and pupils together, carrying + the things. + + Pupil: Yes, sir. + + Master: Would that be a school? + + Pupil: Of course not, sir. + + Master: Then it is not enough to have pupils and teacher together + to make a school. + + Pupil: No, sir. + + Master: What is missing, then? + + Pupil: Why, sir, we carry benches and things, and that is not a + school. + + Master: Well, what exactly is a school? + + Pupil: ... I don’t know. + + Master: I’ll tell you. It is my teaching and your learning that + makes a school. Do you see? + + Pupil: Oh, yes. + + Master: 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? + + Pupil: Well ... I suppose it is not a real school ... + + Master: It is not a school at all. + + Pupil: I see. + + Master: Now if a boy does not want to learn at all—— + + Pupil: He is a bad pupil. + + Master: He is not a pupil at all, as long as he persists in not + learning. + + Pupil: Of course he is not. + + Master: And if he makes a noise and prevents the others from + learning, what then? + + Pupil: He oughtn’t, sir. + + Master: I know he oughtn’t. But if he does not see that he + oughtn’t, and goes on doing it, what happens? + + Pupil: He prevents the others from learning and the master from + teaching. + + Master: 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? + + Pupil: It is just as before, when the Master was bad, it stops + being a school. + + Master: Now supposing you didn’t mind being punished rather than + keep still, could you start singing or jumping about just to be + funny? + + Pupil: Well, no, not even if I did not mind being sent out, I + couldn’t. + + Master: Do you know why? + + Pupil: Because I should spoil your teaching and their learning. + + Master: And you would destroy the school. + +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 +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. + +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.[10] This is the reason why the Roman Catholic Church is at once +democratic and hierarchical. A shepherd can become Pope, an Emperor +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. + +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 _Law_ 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Spiritual reality is not Mind plus some spiritual fact; it is purely +and simply Mind as subject, since any spiritual 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. + +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 _differences_ 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. + +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 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. + +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, +_is_ whilst anything spiritual, mind, a work of mind, a political +constitution _becomes_. Mind and being are opposite terms. A plant +_is_, an animal _is_, in so far as all the determinations of the plant +or animal are a necessary and _pre-ordained consequence_ 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 according to the law of Nature, or, to use Gentile’s +own words, everything _is by Nature_. In the spiritual world nothing +_is by Nature_, 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. + +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 austere +conception of life springs a beautiful notion of liberty, a splendid +conception of man’s creativity. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 _is_ so long as, not yet being, it strives +to realise, to assert, to establish itself. Anything spiritual let +us say, human, the moment it _is_, 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, +_as a reality it is absolutely_ annihilated. + +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 _possessing value_. +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 _hic et nunc_ as a consequence of liberty. Moreover, this +binding imperativeness is universal—for imperative means necessary, and +there can be no necessity without universality. + +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; and as +such it implies evil as its negativity.[11] 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 _particular_ 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. + +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 _ab extra_, it is the life granted to him by +Providence realising itself. + +This is a far cry from ordinary selfishness. From this point of view +the _bellum omnium contra omnes_ 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 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. + +The statement of this problem, the moral problem, is very difficult +indeed, and from a misrepresentation of the relations between _my_ +will and _your_ will and _his_ 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, _concordia discors_. + +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 _is_, 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 +_is_ by nature. + +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 _inter homines_, but _in interiore homine_ and +it can exist between men inasmuch as all men are spiritually one man, +with one single interest: the eternal _increment_ of the patrimony of +mankind. + +Now _society_ implies _authority_, 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. + +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 _Ipse dixit_ 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 _acknowledging_ 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 _becomes_ law. + +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 and sovereign that +can impose laws and make them acknowledged. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +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. + +The state can not be a fact, something already realised. It is the +eternal process, the _instauratio regnum boni_ always becoming, and +dying to be realised by the consciousness of the individual in its own +process of self-realisation. 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. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BENITO MUSSOLINI + + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +Mussolini, when he was still in his teens, used to sit up late in the +inn kept by his father in Forli, and according 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 _La Lotta di classe_ 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 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, _have no conception of +life_ at all, since we have deprived them of religion.” + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Now what Mussolini hopes to obtain from the recrudescence of religious +life is that the people should get a wider outlook upon _Life_ 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 _Life_. All these aims he +hopes to reach through religion. + +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 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. + +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 _may_ 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 +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. + +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 _Lotta di Classe_ is still a 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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 _Philosophy of the Practical_, printed +for the first time in 1908, “that no _vultus instantis tyranni_ can +extinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler, be he ever so strong +and violent, can prevent a rebellion.” 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. + +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. + +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 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.” + +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 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. + +Whatever the smallness of their number—when Mussolini founded the +first _Fascio_ 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. + + * * * * * + +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, _action_. 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 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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 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. + +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. 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 _with a plus_. 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. + +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 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. + +Religious and patriotic as it is, education in Italy is, 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 _Campagna del +Grano_, 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 _plus_ its transcendental +complement. Thereby ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the +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. + +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 _moral_ +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.[12] 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 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 _as for the moment_ 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 _they are appointed by the government. And this is one +weak point of the organisation_, although it is obviously a temporary +one. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +Yet such negations are the preliminary stage to affirmations—the +affirmation of the rights of man _arising from his consciousness of +duty_; 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. + +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 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. + +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 _Sursum corda_. + + + + +[ FOOTNOTES ] + +[1] 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. + +[2] Just as the idea of family in any one individual makes him feel +that the rest of the people are to him _not his family_, are to him +objective reality, whilst his people are to him THE FAMILY, and part of +his subjective reality. + +[3] The author has lived in Italy as a student since May, 1913, in +constant contact with people of all classes. + +[4] 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. + +In the same year groups of followers of Don Sturzo and some _Arditi +Bianchi_ went about with their white flag compelling people to kiss the +hem of it and caning those who would not, the _Arditi Bianchi_, 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. + +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. + +[5] See Francisco de Sancti’s _Storia della Letteratura Italiana_, +Lateza, Bari, vol. ii, chap. i. + +[6] _Philosophy of the Practical._ 1912. Macmillan, London. + +[7] Quoted by Wildon Carr’s _The Philosophy of Mind_ of Benedetto Croce. + +[8] _Op. cit._ + +[9] _Op. cit._, page 491. + +[10] The same can be said of the Israelite community. + +[11] Negativity does not imply unreality. + +[12] 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. + + + + +INDEX + + + Alberti, Leone Battista, 87 + + Alfieri, 168 + + Ardigo, 164 + + Aretino, 101 + + Ariosto, 101 + + Aristotle, 65, 66, 67, 94, 107, 108, 172, 216 + + + Bacon, Francis, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 92, 93, 120, 146, 191 + + Bacon, Roger, 64 + + Bainville, 114, 115 + + Bayle, 146, 147 + + Beltramelli, 212 + + Berkeley, 149 + + Bodin, 94 + + Boccacio, 81 + + Bassuet, 82 + + Bismarck, 25, 26 + + + Cairoli, 21, 22 + + Campanella, 100, 101, 105 + + Carducci, 43 + + Carlo, Alberto, 14 + + Cavour, 10, 14, 33, 185 + + Cherbury, Herbert of, 142 + + Corneille, 116 + + Cola di Rienzo, 81 + + Costa, Andria, 27, 28, 90, 215 + + Carradini, 30, 32, 33, 40 + + Crispi, 20, 24 + + Croce, 88, 89, 125, 130, 170–188, 189, 216, 222 + + Cromwell, 96, 99, 100 + + Cumberland, 141 + + Cuoco, Vincenzo, 122, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 168 + + + Dante, 78, 79, 80, 81, 168, 212, 213 + + D’Annunzio, 48, 52 + + D’Azeglio Massimo, 11 + + Depretis, 25 + + De Ruggiero, G., 163 + + De Sanctis, 16, 77, 83, 101, 104, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170, + 171, 172, 216 + + Descartes, 64, 66, 67, 68, 110, 114–124, 126, 146, 191 + + + Ercole, 89 + + + Federzoni, 30, 32, 33, 40 + + Ficino Marsilio, 87 + + Fiorentino, 164 + + Frederick II, 77, 87 + + Fichte, 213 + + + Garibaldi, 10, 11, 20, 24, 33 + + Gentile, 35, 59, 60, 76, 125, 130, 132, 171, 188–210 + + Gioberti, 16, 159, 162, 163, 164, 165, 171 + + Ghibellines, 78, 79, 83 + + Giolitti, 37, 52 + + Grotius, 93, 94, 95, 127 + + Guarini, 105 + + Guicciardini, 103, 104, 111, 112 + + Guelphs, 78, 79, 83 + + + Hegel, 62, 76, 98, 154, 159, 165, 208, 209, 213 + + Hobbes, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 109, 111, 122, 127, 129, 146 + + Hume, 98, 146 + + + Johnson, 82 + + + Kant, 140, 149, 154, 162, 164, 203, 208 + + + Louis XIV, 114, 115, 116, 124 + + Landino, 87 + + Lévy Bruhl, 62 + + Leibniz, 124, 163 + + Locke, 100, 125, 132, 138, 189 + + + Machiavelli, 40, 41, 42, 86, 88, 89, 90, 101, 102, 103, 110, 112, + 168, 172, 174 + + Mâle, 69, 72 + + Mazzini, 11, 14, 20, 33, 155, 159, 160, 161, 168, 185, 215 + + Malespini, A., 77 + + Maritain, 117 + + Marx, 62 + + Monnier, Ph., 87 + + Melzi, 157 + + Mill, 164 + + Michelangelo, 166 + + Minghetti, 24 + + Montaigne, 146 + + Montesquieu, 147, 149 + + Mussolini, 29, 35, 37, 43, 76, 77, 88, 103, 156, 157, 158, 159, 170, + 171, 177, 180, 186 + + + Nitti, 52 + + Newton, 146 + + + Orange, William, 100, 138 + + + Pascal, 146 + + Pagano, 155 + + Plato, 135 + + Plutarch, 133 + + Poliziano, 167 + + Petrarch, 80, 81, 83 + + Piccolomini, 82 + + Pisano Nicolo, 76 + + + Rosmini, 16, 159, 162, 164, 171 + + Reggio, E., 75 + + Rousseau, 107, 126, 128, 138, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 155, 207 + + + Salandra, 37, 42 + + Saitta, 149 + + San Giuliano, 37 + + Sarfatti, 212 + + Savonarola, 162 + + Scholasticism, 63, 64, 108, 111, 119, 128 + + Shaftesbury, 141, 142 + + Sonnino, 37, 42 + + Solmi, 76 + + Spaventa, 164, 165 + + Spinoza, 89, 129 + + Sturzo, and his party, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 225 + + St. Anselm, 64 + + St. Augustin, 119, 121 + + St. Thomas, 64, 94, 108, 129, 208 + + + Tasso, 105 + + Toland, 142, 143 + + Tocco, 164 + + + Vico, 65, 80, 98, 111, 124–136, 149, 154, 163, 165, 168, 172, 216 + + Villari, 163 + + Vittorio, Emmanuele, 14 + + + Wildon Carr, 190 + + + MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY + THE GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED, LETCHWORTH, HERTS + + + ~~~ Transcriber’s notes ~~~ + +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. + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77090 *** |