Chapter 10

I was but thinking how this city,The immemorial green of Juda's realm,Is falling, vanquished; whose unhappy fateI have in vain endeavoured to repel.

Here the precedents are easily found; Hector parting from Andromache and foreseeing the unhappy fate of Ilion, Priam and all his people (ἒσσεται ἧμαρ, etc.,II.vi. 448-9); or Aeneas as he gazes upon its downfall (ruit alto a culmine Troia: ... si Pergama dextra,etc.,Aen.ii. 290-92). And yet the tragic melancholy of Argante is an entirely new creation, and altogether original to Tasso.

Ficino, Cardano, Tommaso Cornelio, Scotus and Occam, and any others who have been or shall be added to the list, have or may have anticipated this or that element of Vico's formula: and yet when we turn from their statements to theDe antiquissimaand the polemics that follow it, and read the definition of science, of true science, as the conversion of the true with the created, it strikes us as an entirely original theory. The fact is that Vico had not to face the same opponents and to solve the same problems that were faced and solved by the schoolmen, nominalists and mystics of the Middle Ages or by the Platonists and naturalists of the Renaissance, nor yet those of Descartes in hisDiscours sur la méthode;and the saying that "he alone knows things who creates them" acquires a new value, a new meaning (and this is its proper meaning) from its being used to refute the Cartesiancogitoand the doctrine of immediate knowledge. Vico takes an old rusty sword and makes of it at least a glittering and trenchant weapon. For the same reason the phrase is no longer a mere accident or incident, but the starting-point of a special study, the foundation of a new philosophy, and Vico could quite well describe it as something not learnt from another but thought out and established by himself. And when he wants to find some original for it, he invents a history which is really a fiction or a myth; namely the history of ancient Italian wisdom which used this criterion as its supreme guide and left a trace of it in the Latin language in the synonymity of the wordsverumandfactum.

The refutation of the Cartesian criterion (which De Sanctis thought "complete," the "last word of criticism"[34]) is thenegative aspect of Vico's theory of knowledge. Its positive side, absent in theDe antiquissima,is developed as we have said in theScienza Nuova,where the human knowledge of the mind and of history is raised to the level of divine knowledge. And since some critics have not only chosen to ignore the obvious difference between these two phases of Vico's thought but have spoken of a too easy transition from the one to the other, it will be well to observe that this transition was for Vico if not entirely conscious at least very slow and very difficult. He must at one time have shared Descartes' and Malebranche's contempt for history; in the speech of 1701 he even echoed a saying of Descartes against philologists:—"You, Philologist, boast of knowing everything about the furniture and clothing of the Romans and of being more intimate with the quarters, tribes and streets of Rome than with those of your own city. Why this pride? You know no more than did the potter, the cook, the cobbler, the summoner, the auctioneer of Rome."[35]But eleven years later, in the second reply to theGiornale dei letterati,Vico refers to the same phrase with the contrary conclusion, and deplores that "the study of languages is to-day considered profitless, thanks to the authority of Descartes, who says that to know Latin is to know no more than did Cicero's servant-girl."[36]Vico had in the meantime become conscious of the importance of the "probable" knowledge of history and politics. He refers to his former anti-historical Cartesianism in a passage of theDe constantia philologiaewhich has generally escaped notice. Speaking of philology he says: "I, who have all my life delighted in the use of reason more than in memory, seem to myself the more ignorant the more facts I know in philology. Whence René Descartes and Malebranche were not far wrong when they said that it was alien to the philosopher to work much and for long at philology." But he adds that later he perceived that "these two most notable philosophers ought, it they had been zealous for the common glory of Christendom, not for the private glory of philosophers, so to have pressed forward the study of philology as to see whether philology could be attached to the principles of philosophy (ut viderent philosophi an philologiam ad philosophiae principia revocare possent)."[37]The elevation of philologyto the rank of philosophy, of the knowledge of the world of man to the level of divine knowledge, is the positive aspect of Vico's theory of knowledge. It is this that is developed in theScienza Nuova,towards which theDe antiquissima,with the indication of the historical sciences as against Cartesianism, only prepared the way.

Thus of the three points in which I placed the originality and value of Vico's first theory of knowledge, two, namely the criterion of knowledge opposed to that of Descartes and the defence of concrete as opposed to abstract sciences, are not only left intact by the inquiries into their sources which I have just described, but are actually reinforced.

There remains the third of my points: the Vician theory of the arbitrary nature of mathematics, the originality of which has also been impugned by arguments which seem to me to have even less foundation than those I have examined above.

Do we find the doctrine that the fundamental objects of mathematics, the unit of arithmetic and the point of geometry, are unreal or fictitious, propounded before Vico's time? Do we find it—this is the chief point—propounded not as a casual remark or an intuition of a truth, but as a consciously reasoned concept from which legitimate consequences are drawn as to the limitations of mathematics and its inability to furnish real knowledge of mind, nature and history?

All through the Middle Ages the Aristotelian theory of mathematics is continually enunciated. According to this theory mathematics is the most certain of the sciences because the simplest; it abstracts from all sensible matter, but not from intelligible matter (ὖλη νοητή) which exists in sensible objects but not qua sensible (ἐν τοῑς ἀἰσθητοῑs ὑπάρχουσα μὴ ᾖ ἀἰσθητά)[38]According to Cassiodorus it constituted the body ofdoctrinalisas opposed tonaturalis(physical) science anddivina.Albertus Magnus followed Aristotle in defining mathematical entities as separable "in imagination," "in thought" but not "in reality" (in phantasmate, secundum rationem, non secundum esse) from the sensible matter to which "they are conjoined by existence" (per esse sunt coniunctae); and St. Thomas said that mathematics "though the objects it considers are not separate, yet considers them in so far as they are separate"(etsi sunt non separata ea quae considerat, tamen considerat ea in quantum sunt separata).[39]The arbitrary character of its foundations was never suspected. Dante, when he wished to indicate "the things which not being subject to our power we can only contemplate and not create," enumerated "the objects of mathematics, physical science and divinity" (mathematica, physica et divina).[40]

Just as mathematics was not always equally valued in antiquity, so, and much more so, after the Renaissance of learning, it was variously exalted or despised. Giordano Bruno satirised the abuse of it, and said that without physical science "to be able to calculate and measure, to understand geometry and perspective, is but a pastime of ingenious fools," and warned his readers against confusing mathematical "signs" and real "causes": "a reflected or direct ray, an acute or obtuse angle, a perpendicular, incident or straight line, a greater or smaller are of a circle, such and such an aspect, are mathematical circumstances and not natural causes. To play with geometry is one thing, to prove by means of nature is another. It is not lines and angles that make the fire more or less hot, but near and far situations, short and long spaces of time."[41]Campanella flatly denied Aristotle's assertion of the superiority of mathematics to physical science, declaring that its alleged purity was really weakness (debilitas), its simplicity was inability to include more things (plura accipere), its universality a contradiction against the nature of true science which is always of particulars (de singularibus), its demonstrative method by signs not by causes (per signa, non per causas); and finally that it is not a science investigated for its own sake and is valueless unless it is applied to physical matters (nisi applicentur physicis rebus).[42]Bacon is of the same opinion, that mathematics taken by itself is useless, and is useful only as an "auxiliary science," a "great appendix" to the physical sciences.[43]These definitions and restrictions, and others like them, might have yielded as a conclusion the entirely instrumentaland practical character of mathematical science: but the conclusion was not drawn, so far as I know; and Bacon himself considered mathematics as in itself too exclusively and uselessly theoretical. "For since," he goes on in the passage above quoted, "it is a fact of human nature, no doubt to the great detriment of science, that it rejoices in the open plains of generalities, so to speak, rather than in the forests and closes of the particular, no discovery is more pleasant and gratifying than mathematics wherewith to sate this love of wandering and of meditation."

The "creation" of mathematics spoken of by Ficino, Cardano and others signified a mental production entirely free from material presuppositions, and for that reason not less true but true in a higher sense. It is almost the same sense as that found in Descartes and his followers. Locke asserts the reality of mathematical truths, though he admits that there are in nature no figures corresponding to the archetypes existing in the mind of the geometrician;[44]and Leibniz, commenting on this passage, says that "the ideas of justice and temperance are no more our own invention than those of the circle and the square."[45]Tommaso Cornelio, whom we have quoted on the contrast between physical science and mathematics, also believed that mathematics rested on "certain notions and understandings which nature has put into the minds of men as foundations of science."[46]

Another kind of "creation," and one which seems to have more connexion with Vico's"fingere"is discussed in a passage of Aristotle'sMetaphysicswhich has had a good deal of influence. "We find also," Aristotle says, "geometrical figures by actualising them (ἐνεργεἰα), because they are found by being divided: if theyweredivided, they would be obvious, but in reality they exist potentially. Why has the triangle two right angles? Because the angles round one point are equal to two right angles. If then we construct the angle along one side, it would become plain to any one looking at it. Why is the angle in the semicircle equal to a right angle? Because if there are three equal lines, two in the base and one drawn perpendicular to it, it is plain to any one who sees it and knows that. Whence it is evident that we discover things that exist potentially by reducing them to actuality.This is because the actuality is understanding, and the potentiality proceeds from the actuality; so we know by making (Greek: καὶ διὰ τοῡτο ποιοῡντες γιγνώσκουσιν)."[47]But these observations belong to the explanations given by Aristotle in this passage of the conceptions of potentiality and actuality; they are not at all opposed to his theory of mathematics as studying the intelligible matter which subsists in sensible matter, and they only explain the difference between potential and actual truth. In the same way we sometimes find in later philosophers the assertion that mathematical truths are demonstrated and problems resolved "by making them." Thus Sarpi writes in the passage mentioned above: "in mathematics, he who constructs knows because he makes, and he who analyses learns because he seeks how the thing is made. The mode of composition then belongs to the inventive faculty and that of analysis to the discursive: the former is that of problems, the latter of theorems; the latter are demonstrated by analysis, the former by composition."[48]

It has also been recently asserted that the Vician philosophy of mathematics reappears bodily in Galileo and his school;[49]an astounding fact when baldly stated, since eventhough Vico opposes and prefers the great Pisan to Descartes for the moderate use he makes of mathematics in physical science, it is certain that for Galileo as for Leonardo da Vinci mathematics had an objective validity, and the book of nature is written in mathematical characters and geometrical figures. In any case, the passage of Galileo which has been quoted in this reference, on the intensive identity of human with divine knowledge, has nothing to do with the present question, and another passage which asserts that the explanations of terms are free, and it is in the power of every workman to circumscribe and define in his own way the things he is dealing with, without ever being led by this into error or falsehood, and that for instance one may call the bow the stern and the stern the bow, says nothing but a platitude hardly worth saying except by way of adorning a page of controversial rhetoric.[50]In controversy one is often obliged to insist upon platitudes, and the controversy upon which I am now engaged itself presents too many examples.

A passage from theLezioni accademicheof Galileo's pupil Evangelista Torricelli in which he speaks of the difference between physical and mathematical definitions seems at first sight more convincing. But the critic who has called attention to this passage[51]says too much when he asserts that "it is beyond doubt that Vico had read it," since it is unquestionable that Vico hadnotread it. TheLezioni accademichewere published first posthumously in 1715[52]and Vico's theory of mathematics is expounded in theDe rationein 1708 and theDe antiquissima,1710. This, it is true, is of secondary importance, for Vico may have known Torricelli's doctrine through indirect channels, through other books or even orally through some Neapolitan friend or pupil of Torricelli; in any case, if the latter's theory though unknown to Vico was really identical with his own, the similarity of ideas between the two would be of the greatest interest. Unfortunately thecritic has been too hasty, as it seems to me, even in his study and interpretation of the pages of Torricelli.

In the passage in question, a lectureDella leggerezza,read to the Accademia della Crusca, Torricelli controverts, as based on mere appearances and not confirmed by facts and reasoning, Aristotle's definition in theDe coelo: "heavy is that which has a natural property of going towards the centre." He remarks upon this: "The definitions of Physics differ from those of Mathematics in that the former are obliged to adapt and adjust themselves to the object defined, while the latter mathematical definitions are free and can be formed at the will of the geometrician who is defining. The reason is perfectly plain: the things defined in Physics do not come into being with the definition, they exist already by themselves and are found in nature previously. But the things defined by geometry, that is by the science of abstraction, have no existence in the universe of the world other than that which definition gives to them in the universe of intelligence. Thus whatever objects of Mathematics are defined, the same objects will come into existence simultaneously with the definition."[53]

The arbitrary character of mathematics seems here to be clearly stated. But let us reserve our judgment and read on. "If I were to say, the circle is a plane figure with four equal sides and four right angles, this is not at all a false definition; but for the rest of my book I should have to mean, whenever I spoke of a circle, a certain figure which others have called a square. But if a man should say in Physics, 'the horse is a rational animal,' should we not be justified in calling him the horse? We must first look very carefully to see whether the horse is a rational animal or not and then define it as it is, in order that the physical definition may conform to the object and not be counted defective." Here we see that what appeared to be a profound thought has turned out to be a platitude; it is indifferent whether we call the bow the stern or the stern the bow, said Galileo, or, says Torricelli in his turn, whether we call a square a circle or a circle a square; while it does not seem to him an indifferent matter whether we call a horse a rational animal. But even this does not prevent him from admitting later some degree of arbitrariness in physical terminology, when he says, "since then it is not demonstrated that the intrinsic principle of downward motionexists upon the earth, I will accept this definition, if the tests will allow me, as the simple imposition of a name, and, replacing the verb 'to be' by the verb 'to be called,' I will adapt the definition to my own requirements thus: That is called heavy which descends to the centre. Whenever any one says, the earth is heavy, I will agree, but always with the interpretation that the word 'heavy' only signifies descending in a lighter medium."[54]

It seems to me then that the difference which he begins by laying down between mathematics and physical science is considerably obscured in the sequel. And indeed how could Torricelli have seriously thought that the foundation of mathematics was a "fiction," when among his lectures one heard the title "in Praise of Mathematics"? In this lecture he says, quite in the Galilean style: "That to read the great Book of the Universe, the book on whose pages may be found the true philosophy written by God, mathematics are indispensable, will be seen by any one who with noble thoughts aspires to the science of the integral parts and greatest members of this huge body we call the World. The one alphabet, the only characters with which we can read the great manuscript of the divine philosophy in the book of the Universe are those poor figures you see in the text-books of geometry."[55]The most we can see in these statements is a vague and hazy presentment of the profound difference between physical truths and the so-called truths of mathematics.

In conclusion, until for the third of my three points we can discover much more obvious "sources" than those suggested up till now, I shall see no cause to modify my verdict upon the originality of Vico's conception of mathematics. This originality is further proved by the important consequences drawn by Vico from his theory of mathematics for his philosophical method; for every one knows that a thought taken over bodily from another remains inert and sterile, while an original idea is always active and fruitful.

Note.—I have selected, of the various criticisms directed against my book on Vico, that concerning his "originality," because this gave me opportunities for researches and explanations of some value. But my book has been subjected to two general criticisms which do not lend themselves to the same treatment.

It has been said that in my exposition of Vico's philosophyI have followed my personal philosophical convictions: and sermons and epistles have been showered upon me preaching the duty of casting off prejudices, etc., and narrating the history of philosophy in an objective manner, etc. But I should like my critics to believe that my "convictions" cannot have, to my mind, the character of prejudices, but precisely that of liberation from prejudice, which is what they demand: that detachment and purity of understanding which is necessary for the comprehension of historical facts, and is not, as some fancy, a primeval innocence, but the fruit of laborious cultivation. To grasp Vico historically in his strict reality I have been compelled to undergo acatharsisof prejudices, consisting in my case of the philosophy to which my own efforts had led me. My ideas may be untrue, but that is another question; and that means that if their falsity is proved I am bound to clear and purify my mind by means of less false ideas; but these in their turn must always be ideas and become convictions. In point of abstract method, no objection at all can be made to any one who looks at Vico through the spectacles of scholasticism if he thinks they make his sight more distinct and penetrating; the most we can do is to try and persuade him that there are better spectacles on the market. But we certainly have the right to smile if this same scholastic goes on to warn us that "in studying a philosopher, in investigating and reconstructing his thought, it is absolutely necessary to bring to the task a mind free from preconceptions and hostile to prejudices"; while all the time he is trying to pass off his scholastic opinions and religious beliefs under the banner of objectivity, sincerity and freedom from prejudice. "Philosophers"—I have seen this assertion too—"are unfitted for writing the history of philosophy, because they have ideas of their own." And who is fitted for it? People who are not philosophers? Does not Vico teach us precisely this, that where he who makes the facts (as the philosopher makes philosophy) himself narrates them, there history reaches its highest certainty?

The other criticism concerns the idealistic interpretation which I have given to some of Vico's doctrines. It is contended that Vico was a Catholic, and that fact is supposed to prove that he could not have entertained the ideas which I find in his works. But that Vico professed himself an entirely orthodox Catholic, and that he clung to Catholicism with all the strength and zeal of his mind I have myself said again andagain: I have even defended him against the accusations or praises dealt out to him by other critics for deceit or prudence in his attitude to the Church. But is it really so amazing, so unheard-of a thing, to find heterodox ideas in an orthodox writer? Are they not found in the Early Fathers and the Schoolmen, in mediaeval and modern theologians and mystics? To take an example of the many that occur, an example for a double reason above suspicion: Nicholas of Cusa was a Catholic and in fact a Cardinal of Holy Church, and in his lifetime the intimate friend of three popes. And yet the Catholic historian of Scholasticism, De Wulf, wrote of him "Le Cardinal catholique est-il donc panthéiste?... Il s'en défend vivement dans sonApologia doctae ignorantiae,mais on peut dire de lui comme d'Eckehart: 'il fait fléchir la logique au profit de son orthodoxie et retient de force les conséquences de ses prémisses'" (Hist. de la philos. médiévale,p. 389). If this happened to the Cardinal of Cusa or the Franciscan Master Eckehart, could it not happen to the Catholic Vico? M. de Wulf the Catholic historian is allowed to use this admirable method of criticism and to distinguish intention and action, will and logic. Why should it be denied to me? But enough.

[1]A lecture delivered before theAccademia pontanianaon March 10, 1912, and here reprinted from theAttiof that society, vol. xlii.

[2]Von den göttlichen Dingen und ihrer Offenbarung(1811), W.W. iii. 351-354.

[3]Vorlesungen über religiose Philosophie,W.W. i. 195, andVorles. über spekul. Dogmatik, ib.ix. 106 (passages quoted by K. Werner, G. B. Vico, p. 324).

[4]La Filosofia fondamentale,translated from the Spanish, Naples, 1851, bk. i. ch. 30-31.

[5]Storia critica delle prove metafisiche di una realità sovrasensibile (Atti dell' Accademia di Torino,i. 1866), pp. 640-41.

[6]Geschichte der neueren Philosophie(1878), 5th edition, i. 23.

[7]G. B. Vico als Philosoph und gelehrter Forscher(Wien, 1881). It is well known that Werner has written upon St. Thomas, Duns Scotus, late Scholasticism, Suarez, Augustinianism, nominalism, etc.

[8]Th. Neal (A. Cecconi),Vico e l'immanenza,in the RomanCultura contemporanea,iii. (1911) parts 7-8, pp. 1-24.

[9]Cf.Summa Theol.i. q. v. a. I: q. xxi. a. 1-2.

[10]Prima risposta al Giornale dei letterati (Opere,ed. Ferrari, ii. 117).

[11]Balmes,loc. cit.

[12]Scienza Nuova,ed. Nicolini, i. 187-8.

[13]Ibid.p. 188.

[14]Scritti filosofici,ed. Gentile, pp. 383-7, andEsperienza e metafisica,p. 218sqq.

[15]See Gentile's note,loc. cit.

[16]L'Autobiografia, il carteggio e le poesie varie,ed. Croce, pp. 4-5. Mauthner's assertion (Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache,Berlin, 1901, ii. 497-8) that Vico was a nominalist and that the great discoveries of theScienza Nuovawere due to his nominalism, is quite arbitrary and not founded correctly on his autobiography.

[17]Autobiography,ed. cit. pp. 5-6. Pietro Giannone was also studying Scotism about 1690 (Vita scritta da lui medesimo,ed. Nicolini, pp. 6-7).

[18]Werner,Johannes Duns Scotus(Wien, 1881), p. 76.

[19]Werner,Die nachscotistische Scholastik(Wien, 1883), p. 82.

[20]Scritti filosofici inediti,ed. Papini (Lanciano, Carabba, 1910).

[21]See Gentile's observations on Papini's edition, in theCritica,review viii. 62-5.

[22]Papini's edition has "po'" (little): but his source, the Marcian MS., has an abbreviation to be read as "però" (therefore).

[23]Appendix to hisOpera medica(Tolosae Tectasogum, 1636), p. 10.

[24]Ottonis Episcopi Frisigensis Opera,ex recens. R. Wilmans, i.Chronicon(Hannoveriae, 1867), pp. 118-19.

[25]Autob.ed. cit. p. 21.

[26]Ibid.p. 25.

[27]Theologia Platonica(Bale, 1561), i. 123. This passage of Ficino has been quoted and commented on by my friend Gentile, in a highly important monograph onLa prima fase della filosofia di G. B. Vico(viz. the "inaugural lectures"), published in the miscellany in honour of Francesco Torraca (1912, seeinfra,p. 310) and read in MS. by myself, thanks to the courtesy of the author.

[28]See Gentile's monograph, mentioned above.

[29]These passages of theTractatus de arcanis aeternitatis,ch. iv., and of theDe subtilitate,bks. xi. and xxi. are quoted and commented on by Fiorentino,Bernardino Telesio ossia studi storici su l' idea della natura nel risorgimento italiano(Florence, Le Monnier, 1872), i. 212-13, who does not fail to observe the relations with Vico's criterion.

[30]Thomae Cornelii consentiniProgymnasmata physica(Naples, MDCLXXXVIII.), p. 70: cf. also p. 64.

[31]See Gentile's monograph, mentioned above.

[32]By A. Pastore in a review of my monograph on Vico in theGiorn. stor. d. left. ital.lviii., cf. pp. 400-402.

[33]A. A. Zottoli,G. B. Vico,inCultura,Rome, xxx. (1911) pp. 422-3.

[34]Opp.ed. Ferrari, ii. 166.

[35]Orazioni latine,ed. Galasso, p. 28.

[36]Opp.ed. Ferrari, ii. 166.

[37]Ibid.232.

[38]Metaphys.vi. 1036 a.

[39]The passages of Cassiodorus, Albertus and St. Thomas may be found collected in Mariétan,Problème de la classification des sciences d'Aristote à saint Thomas(Paris, 1901), see pp. 80, 168-9, 182-3, 185-6.

[40]De monarchia,i. c. 3.

[41]La Cena delle ceneri(1584) in hisOpere italiane,ed. Gentile, i. 62, 107-8.

[42]Logicorum libri très,bk. ii. art. 7-10 (in thePhilosophiae rationalis pars secunda,Parisiis, 1637, pp. 433-7).

[43]De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum,bk. iii. c. 6.

[44]Essay,iv. ch. 4, § 6.

[45]Nouveaux essais,iv. ch. 4.

[46]Op. cit.p. 64.

[47]Metaphys.viii. 1051 b. I append the passage: εὑρἰσκεται δὲ καὶ τὰ διαγράμματα ἐνεργεἰᾳ · διαιροῡντες γὰρ εὑρἰσκουσις. εὶ δ' ἧν διῃρημένα φανερὰ ἂν ἧν · νῦν δ' ἐνυπάρχει δυνάμει. διὰ τί δύο ὀρθαὶ τò τρίγωνον ὃτι αἱ περἱ μἱαν στιγμὴν γωνίαι ἲσαι δύο ὀρθαῑς. εὶ oὖν ἀνῆκτο ἡ παρὰ τἡν πλευρὰν ἰδόντι ἂν ἧν εὐθὺς δῆλον. διὰ τί ἐν ἡμικυκλίῳ ὀρΘὴ καΘόλου; διὀτι ἐὰν τρεῑς, ἤ τε βάσις δύο καὶ ἡ ἐκ μέσου ἐπισταΘεῑα ὀρΘὴ, ἰδόντι δῆλον τῷ ἐκεῑνο εἰδὀτι. ὤστε φανερòv ὄτι τὰ δυνάμει ὄντα εἰς ἐνέργεἰαν ἀναγόμενα εὑρἰσκεται. αἴτιον δ' ὄτι νὀησις ἡ ἐνεργεἰᾳ · ὤστ ἐξ ἐνεργεἰας ἡ δυνάμις. καὶ διὰ τοῡτο ποιοῡντες γιγνώσκουσιν.

[48]Scritti filosofici,ed. Papini, p. 7. In a passage of theArte di ben pensare(Scritti,p. 72) Sarpi returns to mathematics and, while agreeing that it is less uncertain than the other sciences because in it "the mode and the proposition" are more clearly shown, goes on to say "it is also made in the same manner (as the others): it is not free from the suspicion of being not quite true." But clearly he is here speaking of the application of mathematics, of the act of counting and measuring physical objects: "this alone is certain: I count and reason in this manner, just as in eating honey I feel the effect which I call sweet; where I may be in error is the question whether this effect comes from the object or from the disposition of my taste: and there is no science where there are number and measurement, for all we can know is that we measure or count like this, and that the measure comes in or is used as many times as the thing seems to be equal to one such part and that equality is a concept of ours by which we express what then seems to happen."

[49]G. Papini,La Novità di VicoinL'Anima,Florence, September 1911, pp. 264-6; cf. on this article,Critica,x. 56-8.

[50]Papini probably owes this passage to a small anthology of Galileo by Favaro (Florence, Barbèra, 1910), p, 303, which refers to the national edition of hisOpere,iv. 631; here the passage occurs in theConsiderazioni sopra il discorso di Colombo(1615).

[51]G. Papini,loc. cit.pp. 265-6.

[52]Lezioni accademiche di Evangelista Torricelli, mathematico e filosofo del serenissimo Ferdinando II Granduca di Toscana, lettore delle matematiche nello studio di Firenze e accademico della Crusca(Florence, MDCCXV.). The editor's preface shows that the work had not been previously published.

[53]Op. cit.pp. 31-2.

[54]Op. cit.p. 33.

[55]Op. cit.p. 66.

Vico's earliest extant work is the poem entitledFeelings of one in despair,composed certainly before the author's twenty-fifth year at Vatolla in the Cilento, where he lived for nine years as a tutor at the Casa Rocca, printed by Gonzatti at Venice and dated 1693. This was followed by verses and speeches of a merely rhetorical character.

The philosophical characteristics are accentuated in the six speeches read by Vico at Naples University, 1699-1707, not printed by him, and rediscovered and published by Galasso (Naples, Morano, 1869). In these speeches, though some tendencies of his thought show themselves, his philosophy is still the traditional system, not without some traces of Cartesianism. Vico's opposition to Cartesianism and formal adoption of his own views are announced for the first time in the inaugural lecture for the year 1708, entitledDe nostri temporis studiorum ratione,published next year by the author himself (Naples, Mosca, 1709). A long digression (§§ 12-15) contains a sketch of the history of Roman jurisprudence, his first essay in the historical studies which led later on to theDiritto universaleand the twoScienze Nuove.

The following year appeared Vico's first constructively philosophical and historical work: theDe antiquissima Italorum sapientia ex linguae Latinae originibus eruenda,or rather the first book of that work (Naples, Mosca, 1710): the other two were never written, but we can form an idea of their intended contents from what is said in the Autobiography. Beside Vico's theory of knowledge in its first form and the metaphysic which he always maintained in its entirety, theDe antiquissimacontained an attempt to reconstitute for thefirst time primitive wisdom, or rather one particular instance of primitive wisdom, that of Italy; but as we have already said in the text of our exposition the attempt was founded on the idea that this wisdom was philosophical, and conducted according to the criterion of the transmission of culture which Vico subsequently rejected, as he rejected the traditional opinion, accepted in this work, of the Athenian origin of the laws of the Twelve Tables. We must accordingly refuse to accept Cantoni's verdict (G. B. Vico,p. 38) that theDe antiquissimaforms "a strange anomaly in the history of Vico's thought, being contrary to his whole scientific life, his tendencies, his principles, and the method which later he almost universally applies in his historical researches." The reverse is in fact the case: namely that this work is the starting-point of his future developments and that without it we cannot understand his later thought.

The criticisms directed by theGiornale dei letterati d' Italia(1711, vols. v. and viii.) against the historical and some of the philosophical positions of theDe antiquissimaevoked Vico's two importantReplies(Naples, Mosca, 1711 and 1712) in which he defends and elucidates his views on the theory of knowledge and metaphysics. The part of theDe antiquissimathat never went to the press included his meditations on the philosophy of medicine, from which he extracted an essayDe aequilibrio corporis animantis:this he thought of publishing many years later, but it is now lost. Of these studies, therefore, as of his speculations upon physics intended to constitute aLiber physicus,we know only what he tells us in his autobiography.

Setting aside his rhetorical and occasional compositions, the largest of which is theDe rebus gestis Antonii Caraphaei(Naples, Mosca, 1716), the continuation of his thought, now concentrating upon moral and historical problems, is sketched in a lecture of 1719 (of which an abstract is included in the autobiography) and developed first in 1720 in a printed prospectus of four double-columned pages known as theSinopsi del diritto universale,and secondly in the vast treatise,De universi iuris uno principio et fine uno liber unus(Naples, Mosca, 1720) completed next year with theLiber alter qui est de constantia iurisprudentis,and supplemented in 1722 by theNotae in duos libros,etc. (same publisher); a work which is usually referred to briefly following the author's example as theDiritto universale.

This book, according to Cantoni (op. cit.p. 243) represents the culminating point of Vico's scientific activity. The verdict is no more acceptable than that quoted above. The author (Opp.v. 10-11) rejected theDiritto universalebecause he seemed to find persisting there the prejudice and the pretence of "descending" from the thought of Plato and other philosophers to that of primitive man, a tendency which led him astray "in certain matters"; but he also calls it, and rightly, a "sketch for theScienza Nuova," which it really is. The ideas about poetry are here still confused, Homer is not yet a myth, the mythological canons have less unity than they acquired later, the theory of reflux is only faintly adumbrated, and in a word both the ideal eternal history and the theory of knowledge upon which it is founded are as yet immature. The book is all contained, under a new form, in his later work, except the general ethical and juridical philosophy, which is not highly original, and some historical developments which are merely alluded to in the later writings.

The MS. of an Italian work in two books, in which Vico expounded his doctrines "by a negative method," has been lost. But he expounds them positively and at less length in thePrincipi di una Scienza Nuova intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, per la quale si ritrovano i principi di altro sistema del diritto naturale delle genti(Naples, Mosca, 1725) which is known by the title (again authorised by himself) of FirstScienza Nuova.

In 1725, the year of the publication of the firstScienza Nuova,Vico related the history of his studies:Vita di G. B. Vico scritta da se medesimo,which was inserted in Calogerà'sRaccolta di opuscoli scientifici e filologici(Venice, Zani, 1728, vol. i. pp. 145-256). Among the minor writings of this period may be noted the two speeches on the death of the Countess of Althann (1724) and the Marchesana della Petrella Angiola Cimini (1727); the little volumeVici vindiciae(Naples, Mosca, 1729) containing a personal defence (together with an important theoretical digression on "laughter") against a malevolent notice inserted in theActa Lipsiensiaof 1727, about theScienza Nuova;and some fine letters to Giacchi, Degli Angioli, Esperti, De Vitry and Solla on the contrast between his works and the state of learning at this time.

To the firstScienza NuovaVico thought of adding a long series ofAnnotationsin a reprint of it which he was preparing at Venice between 1728 and 1730. But since this scheme wasnot carried out, and on the other hand he was dissatisfied with the book not so much on account of the matter, he says, as on account of the arrangement (Opp.vi. 11), he resolved to publish an entirely new exposition of his doctrines in theCinque libri de' principi di una Scienza Nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, in questa seconda impressione con più propia maniera condotti e di molto accresciuti(Naples, Mosca, 1730), which form the secondScienza Nuova.While Cantoni (op. cit.pp. 238-9) considers this work the dotage of Vico's thought, it is really the necessary result and perfect form in which his previous attempts issued; it is the book which with theDe antiquissimaand the autobiography supplies all the necessary material for a knowledge of his thought. In theDiritto universaleand the firstScienza Nuovawe can find a few details omitted in the later work; but those treatises display the same doctrines as the secondScienza Nuovain a manner much less profound and solid, and certainly less characteristic of the author. The detailed comparison of these three works has been made with great care in the short summaries added by Ferrari to his editions of the first and secondScienza Nuova.

Even the 1730 edition was increased by the author from 1731 to about 1740 by many variations and additions, though without changing the arrangement or the substance of the work. These additions were taken for the most part incorporated in a final MS. on which was based the edition of thePrincipi di una Scienza Nuova intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni,published the very year of Vico's death (Naples, Stamperia Muziana, 1744). In the National Library at Naples are preserved the autographs both of this MS. and of two earlier MSS. of additions and corrections, unpublished fragments of which have been published by Giordano (Naples, 1818) and Del Giudice (Naples, 1862). All the unpublished fragments and variants have been now collected by Nicolini in the edition hereafter mentioned (p. 307).

After the secondScienza NuovaVico wrote hardly anything. We may note among these few productions the speechDe mente heroica(Naples, 1732), the addition to the autobiography (1731), and a few sonnets in which, composed though they were, like almost all his verses, by request and as occasional pieces, a personal note may at times be felt.

Two collections of Vico's minor works have been made, one of theLatinae orationesalone by F. Daniele (Naples, 1766), and the other, rich in unpublished matter, of the Italian and LatinOpuscoli,in four volumes, by C. A. de Rosa, Marchese di Villarosa (Naples, 1818-23). Vico's son Gennaro furnished Villarosa with all his father's extant papers; and these priceless autographs are still preserved at Naples in the house of my intimate friends the engineers Tommaso and Vincenzo de Rosa di Villarosa.

The first and only edition as it may be called, since all others are merely reproductions of it, of Vico's complete works is that of Giuseppe Ferrari, in six volumes (Milan,Classici italiani,1835-37) reprinted with improvements in 1852-54. TheOpereedited by N. M. Corcia (Naples, Tipografia della Sibilla, 1834, 2 vols.) are only a selection; and theOpereedited by F. Predari (Milan, Bravetta, 1835) never went beyond one ill-arranged volume. The edition which followed that of Ferrari (Naples, Iovane, 1840-41) is also incomplete and ill-arranged, but contains some small unpublished works. The Neapolitan edition of theOperein eight volumes (i.-ii. 1858, iii. 1861, iv. 1859, v.-vi. 1860, vii. 1865, viii. 1869, the earlier volumes at the Tipografia dei Classici Italiani, the others by the publisher Morano) is based mainly upon Ferrari, but somewhat incorrect; it is however the most complete of all, as containing theSinopsi,theIstituzioni oratorie,and theOrazioni latinepublished by Galasso subsequently to Ferrari's edition, as well as the Italian translations by the advocate F. S. Pomodoro of theDe ratione, De antiquissima,andDiritto universale.

Unpublished or scattered works of Vico not appearing in any of these editions have been collected by Croce,Bibliografia vichianaandPrimoandSecondo supplemento: see below.

A critical edition of the secondScienza Nuovais now being printed in theCollezione dei classici della filosofia modernadiretta da B. Croce e G. Gentile(Bari, Laterza): the first volume is to be published at the same time as the present monograph.[1]It is being edited by Dr. Fausto Nicolini, who by using the autograph MSS. has enriched Ferrari's edition, which contained the fragments suppressed in the 1730 issue, by all the fragmentsof the intermediate redactions down to the 1744 text; Vico's quotations have been checked and references given in notes to the passages of classical and modern authors to which he refers; and, finally, in deference to a wish often expressed by men of letters as authoritative as Tommaseo, the orthography and punctuation have been corrected. Ferrari's valuable summaries are reproduced, with a few emendations, in Nicolini's edition.

Nicolini is also at work on a new edition of the complete works, to form part of Laterza's collection ofScrittori d' Italia,the scheme and detailed index of which may be seen in Croce,Secondo supplemento alla Bibliografia vichiana(pp. 102-13). The fifth volume of this collection, edited by Croce, is also to appear with the present monograph.

Vico's Latin works have frequently been translated into Italian: theDe antiquissimaanonymously, perhaps by Vincenzo Monti (1816), and later by Sarchi (1870): the first book of theDiritto naturaleby Corcia (1839), Amante (1841), Giani (1855), and Sarchi (1866), and both books, with theDe rationeandDe antiquissima,as we have said, by Pomodoro.

The secondScienza Nuovawas translated into French, much abbreviated, by Jules Michelet, under the title ofPrincipes de la philosophie de l'histoire(Paris, Renouard, 1827) and frequently reprinted; and again, in full, by an anonymous translator described as "l'Auteur de l'Essai sur la formation du dogme catholique," in reality Cristina Trivulzi, Princess of Belgioioso (Paris, Renouard, 1844). Michelet also translated some of Vico's minor works, published with theScienza Nuovain the edition of theOeuvres choisies de Vico(Paris, Hachette, 1835) and frequently reprinted.

In German there is a translation in full with good notes by W. E. Weber (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1844). There is also a summary of the first book of theDiritto universaleby K. H. Müller, forming the first volume of a series of Vico'sKleine Schriftenwhich was not continued (Neubrandenburg, Brunslow, 1854).

The only English translation is a version of the book on Homer based on Michelet's French translation and inserted in H. Nelson Coleridge'sIntroduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets(3rd ed., London, Murray, 1846).

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