Language is perpetual creation. What has been linguistically expressed cannot be repeated, save by the reproduction of what has already been produced. The ever-new impressions give rise to continuous changes of sounds and of meanings, that is, to ever-new expressions. To seek the model language, then, is to seek the immobility of motion. Every one speaks, and should speak, according to the echoes which things arouse in his soul, that is, according to his impressions. It is not without reason that the most convinced supporter of any one of the solutions of the problem of the unity of language (be it by the use of Latin, of fourteenth-century Italian, or of Florentine) feels a repugnance in applying his theory, when he is speaking in order to communicate his thoughts and to make himself understood. The reason for this is that he feels that were he to substitute Latin, fourteenthcentury Italian, or Florentine speech for that of a different origin, but which answers to his impressions, he would be falsifying the latter. He would become a vain listener to himself, instead of a speaker, a pedant in place of a serious man, a histrion instead of a sincere person. To write according to a theory is not really to write at the most, it is making literature.

The question of the unity of language is always reappearing, because, put as it is, there can be no solution to it, owing to its being based upon a false conception of what language is. Language is not an arsenal of ready-made arms, and it is not vocabulary, which, in so far as it is thought of as progressive and in living use, is always a cemetery, containing corpses more or less well embalmed, that is to say, a collection of abstractions.

Our mode of settling the question of the model language, or of the unity of the language, may seem somewhat abrupt, and yet we would not wish to appear otherwise than respectful towards the long line of literary men who have debated this question in Italy for centuries. But those ardent debates were, at bottom, debates upon æstheticity, not upon æsthetic science, upon literature rather than upon literary theory, upon effective speaking and writing, not upon linguistic science. Their error consisted in transforming the manifestation of a want into a scientific thesis, the need of understanding one another more easily among a people dialectically divided, in the philosophic search for a language, which should be one or ideal. absurd as that other

Such a search was as search for a universal

language, with the immobility of the concept and of the abstraction. The social need for a better understanding of one another cannot be satisfied save by universal culture, by the increase of communications, and by the interchange of thought among men.

These observations must suffice to show that Conclusion. all the scientific problems of Linguistic are the same as those of Esthetic, and that the truths and errors of the one are the' truths and errors of the other. If Linguistic and Æsthetic appear to be two different sciences, this arises from the fact that people think of the former as grammar, or as a mixture between philosophy and grammar, that is, an arbitrary mnemonic scheme. They do not think of it as a rational science and as a pure philosophy of speech. Grammar, or something grammatical, also causes the prejudice in people's minds, that the reality of language lies in isolated and combinable words, not in living discourse among expressive organisms, rationally indivisible.

Those linguists, or glottologists with philosophical endowments, who have best fathomed questions of language, resemble (to employ a worn but efficacious figure) workmen piercing a tunnel at a certain point they must hear the

voices of their companions, the philosophers of Esthetic, who have been piercing it from the other side. At a certain stage of scientific elaboration, Linguistic, in SO far as it is philosophy, must be merged in Æsthetic; and indeed it is merged in it, without leaving a residue.

HISTORICAL SUMMARY

I

ÆSTHETIC IDEAS IN GRÆCO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY

THE question, as to whether Esthetic should be looked upon as ancient or modern, has often been discussed. The answer will depend upon the view taken of the nature of Esthetic.

Benedetto Croce has proved that Esthetic is the science of expressive activity. But this knowledge cannot be reached, until has been defined the nature of imagination, of representation, of expression, or whatever we may term that faculty which is theoretic, but not intellectual, which gives knowledge of the individual, but not of the universal.

Now the deviations from this, the correct theory, may arise in two ways: by defect or by excess. Negation of the special æsthetic activity, or of its autonomy, is an instance of the former. This amounts to a mutilation of the reality of the spirit. Of the latter, the substitution or superposition of another mysterious and non-existent activity is an example.

These errors each take several forms. That which errs by defect may be: (a) pure hedonism, which looks upon art as merely sensual pleasure; (b) rigoristic hedonism, agreeing with (a), but adding that art is irreconcilable with the loftiest activities of man; (c)