mutilated by those who presumed to correct it, and, in fact, only returned to the outworn rhetorical conception of art as consisting of a little content and a little form. Only within the last ten years has there been a renewal of philosophical studies, arising out of discussions concerning the nature of history 1 and the relation in which it stands to art and science, and nourished by the controversy excited by the publication of De Sanctis' posthumous works.2 The same problem of the relation between history and science, and their difference or antithesis, reappeared also in Germany, but without being put in its true connexion with the problem of Esthetic. These inquiries and discussions, and the revival of a Linguistic impregnated by philosophy in the work of Paul and some others, appear to us to offer much more favourable ground for the scientific development of Esthetic than can be found on the summits of mysticism or the low plains of positivism and sensationalism.

1 B. Croce, La storia ridotta sotto il concetto generale dell' arte, 1893 (2nd ed. entitled Il concetto della storia nelle sue relazioni col concetto dell' arte, Rome, 1896); P. R. Trojano, La storia come scienza sociale, vol. i., Naples, 1897; G. Gentile, Il concetto della storia (in Crivellucci's Studi storici, 1889); see also F. de Sarlo, Il problema estetico, in Saggi di filosofia, vol. ii., Turin, 1897; and by same author, I dati dell' esperienza psichica, Florence, 1903, concluding chapter.

2 La letteratura italiana nel secolo XIX, edited by B. Croce, Naples, 1896; also Scritti vari, ed. Croce, Naples, 1898, 2 vols.

3 H. Rickert, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, Freiburg i. B., 1896-1902.

Result of the history of Esthetic.

XIX

HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF SOME PARTICULAR

DOCTRINES

Having

We have reached the end of our history.
passed in review the travail and doubt through which
the discovery of the æsthetic concept was achieved, the
vicissitudes first of neglect, then of revival and redis-
covery to which it was exposed, the various oscillations
and failures in its exact determination, the resurrection,
triumphant and overwhelming, of ancient errors supposed
to be dead and buried; we may now conclude, without
appearing to assert anything unproven, that of Esthetic
in the proper sense of the word we have seen very little,
even including the last two centuries' active research.
Exceptional intellects have hit the mark and have sup-
ported their views with energy, with logic, and with
consciousness of what they were doing. It would no doubt
be possible to extract many true affirmations leading to
the same point of view from the works of non-philosophical
writers, art-critics and artists, from commonly received
opinions and proverbial sayings; such a collection would
show that this handful of philosophers does not stand
alone, but is surrounded by a throng of supporters and
is in perfect agreement with the general mind and universal
common sense. But if Schiller was right in saying that
the rhythm of philosophy is to diverge from common
opinion in order to return with redoubled vigour, it is
evident that such divergence is necessary, and constitutes
the growth of science, which is science itself. During
this tedious process Esthetic made mistakes which were

at once deviations from the truth and attempts to reach it such were the hedonism of the sophists and rhetoricians of antiquity and of the sensationalists of the eighteenth and second half of the nineteenth century; the moralistic hedonism of Aristophanes, of the Stoics, of the Roman eclectics, of the medieval and Renaissance writers; the ascetic and logical hedonism of Plato and the Fathers of the Church, of some medieval and even some quite modern rigorists; and finally, the aesthetic mysticism which first appeared in Plotinus and reappeared again and again until its last and great triumph in the classical period of German philosophy. In the midst of these variously erroneous tendencies, ploughing the field of thought in every direction, a tenuous golden rivulet seems to flow, formed by the acute empiricism of Aristotle, the forceful penetration of Vico, the analytical work of Schleiermacher, Humboldt, De Sanctis and others who echoed them with weaker voice. This series of thinkers suffices to remind us that æsthetic science no longer remains to be discovered; but at the same time the fact that they are so few and so often despised, ignored or controverted, proves that it is in its infancy.

science and

The birth of a science is like that of a living being: History of its later development consists, like every life, in fighting history of the the difficulties and errors, general and particular, which scientific criticism of lurk in its path on every side. The forms of error are particular numerous in the extreme and mingle with each other and errors. with the truth in complications equally numerous root out one, another appears in its stead; the uprooted ones also reappear, though never in the same shape. Hence the necessity for perpetual scientific criticism and the impossibility of repose or finality in a science and of an end to further discussion. The errors which may be described as general, negations of the concept of art itself, have been touched on from time to time in the course of this History; whence it may be gathered a simple affirmation of the truth has not always been accompanied by any considerable recapture of enemy territory. As to what we have called particular errors, it is clear that

Rhetoric in the ancient sense.

when freed from confusing admixture of other forms and divested of fanciful expression, they reduce themselves to three heads, under which they have already been criticized in the first or theoretical part of this work. That is to say, errors may be directed (a) against the characteristic quality of the æsthetic fact; (b) against the specific ; (c) against the generic: they may involve denial of the character of intuition, of theoretic contemplation, or of spiritual activity, which together constitute the æsthetic fact. Among the errors which fall into these three categories we are now to sketch in outline the history of those which have had, or have to-day, the greatest importance. Rather than a history it will be a historical essay, sufficient to show that, even in the criticism of individual errors, æsthetic science is in its infancy. If among these errors some appear to be decadent and nearly forgotten, they are not dead; they have not accomplished a legal demise at the hands of scientific criticism. Oblivion or instinctive rejection is not the same thing as scientific denial.

I

RHETORIC OR THE THEORY OF ORNATE FORM

Proceeding according to rank in importance, we inevitably head the list of theories for examination with the theory of Rhetoric, or Ornate Form.

It will not be superfluous to observe that the meaning given in modern times to the word Rhetoric, namely, the doctrine of ornate form, differs from that which it had for the ancients. Rhetoric in the modern sense is above all a theory of elocution, while elocution (λégis, ppáσis, épμnveía, elocutio) was but one portion, and not the principal one, of ancient Rhetoric. Taken as a whole, it consisted strictly of a manual or vade-mecum for advocates and politicians; it concerned itself with the two or the three "styles" (judicial, deliberative, demonstrative), and gave advice or furnished models to those striving to produce certain effects by means of speech.

Criticism from moral point of

No definition of the art is more accurate than that given by its inventors the earliest Sicilian rhetoricians, scholars of Empedocles (Corax, Tisias, Gorgias): Rhetoric is the creator of persuasion (Teoûs Enμlovpyós). It devoted itself to showing the method of using language so as to create a certain belief, a certain state of mind, in the hearer; hence the phrase "making the weaker case stronger” (τὸ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιεῖν); the increase or diminution according to circumstances (eloquentia in augendo minuendoque consistit); the advice of Gorgias to turn a thing to a jest if the adversary takes it seriously, or to a serious matter if he takes it as a jest," 1 and many similar well-known maxims. He who acts in this manner is not only æsthetically accomplished, as saying beautifully that which he wishes to say; he is also and especially a practical man with a practical end in view. As a practical man, however, he cannot evade moral responsibility for his actions; this point was fastened upon by Plato's polemic against Rhetoric, that is to say against fluent political charlatans and unscrupulous lawyers and journalists. Plato was quite right to condemn Rhetoric (when dissociated from a good purpose) as blameworthy and discreditable, directed to arouse the passions, a diet ruinous to health, a paint disastrous to beauty. Even had Rhetoric allied herself to Ethics, becoming a true guide of the soul (ψυχαγωγία τις διὰ τῶν Xóywv); had Plato's criticism been directed solely against her abusers (everything being liable to abuse save virtue itself, says Aristotle); had Rhetoric been purified, producing such an orator as Cicero desired, non ex rhetorum officinis sed ex academiae spatiis, and imposing on him, with Quintilian, the duty of being vir bonus dicendi peritus; yet the unalterable fact remains that Rhetoric can never be considered a regular science, being formed of a congeries of widely dissimilar cognitions. It included Accumulation descriptions of passions and affections, comparisons of political and judicial institutions, theories of the abbrevi

3

1 For Gorgias' saying see Aristotle, Rhet. iii. ch. 18. 2 Cicero, Orat. ad Brut., introd. 3 Quintilian, Inst. orat. xii. ch. 1.

without

system.