{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_77090/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_77090","id":"gutenberg_77090","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77090","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - European","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Italy -- Politics and government -- 1914-1945","Partito nazionale fascista (Italy)","Political science","State, The"],"text":"THE\n                               PEDIGREE OF\n                                 FASCISM\n\n                     A POPULAR ESSAY ON THE WESTERN\n                         PHILOSOPHY OF POLITICS\n\n\n                                   BY\n                               ALINE LION\n                       _Lady Margaret Hall, Oxon._\n\n\n                                 LONDON:\n                              SHEED & WARD\n                       31, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 4\n\n\n\n\n                                   TO\n                           JOHN WALTER, ESQ.,\n                        TO WHOSE QUESTIONS I OWE\n                      THE FIRST IDEA OF THIS BOOK.\n\n                                             A. L.\n\n\n                         _First Published_, 1927\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                 Part I\n\n                  THE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM\n\n        CHAPTER                                                     PAGE\n\n     I. Is Fascism a Revolution?                                       3\n\n    II. Liberalism in Italy                                           10\n\n   III. Nationalism and Socialism                                     23\n\n    IV. The European War and its Effects                              37\n\n\n                                Part II\n\n                  PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM\n\n     I. Philosophical Antecedents                                     58\n\n    II. Humanism and Renaissance                                      70\n\n   III. The Seventeenth Century                                       92\n\n    IV. The Seventeenth Century in France                            114\n\n     V. Giambattista Vico                                            125\n\n    VI. Illuminism in England and France                             137\n\n   VII. Nineteenth Century in Italy                                  154\n\n  VIII. Benedetto Croce                                              170\n\n    IX. Giovanni Gentile                                             189\n\n     X. Benito Mussolini                                             211\n\n        Index                                                        235\n\n\n\n\nAUTHOR\u2019S NOTE\n\n\nI should, perhaps, say from the first that I am neither Italian nor\nFascist. Yet, having lived in Italy from 1913 to 1927, I cannot but be\nconscious of the fact that the country has undergone a deep change,\nand have come to the conclusion that it is a change for the better.\nMy purpose in writing this book has been to bring to the knowledge of\npeople possessed of a fair amount of general knowledge, the conclusions\nthat might be formed by a specialist with regard to this change and\nthe value of it. Incidentally I have endeavoured to discourage both\nthose who would import Fascism, as it flourishes in Italy, into other\ncountries, and those who would hinder the spread of that philosophy\nwhich, I hold, is its basis.\n\nIt is necessary to avoid, when possible, definitely partisan sources of\ninformation; therefore I have turned to the works of Michele Rosi for\nthe history of politics and to Frederick Windelband for the history of\nphilosophy wherever general reading has proved inadequate or my memory\nfailed.\n\nIn conclusion I must offer special thanks to Sir Frank Fox for his\ncareful reading of my manuscript and his invaluable suggestion with\nregard to it. I am also most grateful to the following whom I have\nconsulted as to historical or philosophical accuracy\u2014Professor G. A.\nSmith, Professor G. C. Webb, Mrs. Anne MacCormick, Miss Jamison, Miss\nMary Coate and Mr. R. G. Collingwood.\n\n                                                        ALINE LION.\n\n _Lady Margaret Hall,\n   Oxford._\n\n\n\n\nPart I\n\nTHE POLITICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIS FASCISM A REVOLUTION?\n\n\nIf one may judge of the importance of a political event by the number\nof articles and books printed on the subject there is no question but\nthat Fascism is one of the most important movements of the post-war\nworld. Strange to say, however, the light thrown by most of these\npublications fails to illuminate the points most interesting to\nforeigners. This is probably due first of all to the fact that most\nof the writers have written either for or against it; moreover, this\nmovement, being peculiarly Italian, is difficult for a foreign mind to\ngrasp. In any case, it is a fact that in spite of all the good or bad\nwill of the journalists this revolution is far from being understood.\nThe lack of intelligent information regarding it is felt everywhere;\nand it would be difficult to say whether the misrepresentation is\ngreater among those who admire it and, seeing in it a universal remedy\nfor all modern woes, want to introduce its method in other countries;\nor among those who consider it just as a matter of incidental and local\npolitics. I shall try to put it in its historical setting, and I shall\nconsider myself fortunate if I can throw light on its relation to the\npolitical past of Italy, and to the present political conceptions of\nother countries.\n\nThe first question that invariably arises is whether Fascism is or is\nnot a revolution. This, however, must be answered by another: what is\na revolution? No word stands in greater need of a sound, common-sense\ndefinition, yet a definition of it stands on the very threshold of any\nimpartial research on Fascism.\n\nIs revolution merely a change of government? This is not sufficient.\nIf it were, the fall of Louis Philippe from the throne of France would\nbe a revolution; yet it is obviously by a license that one speaks of\nit as the Revolution of \u201948. The form of government may change without\nany substantial alteration of the r\u00e9gime. Then does revolution imply a\nchange of r\u00e9gime? Yes, but, again, what is exactly a change of r\u00e9gime?\n\nWithout following any further this method of investigation let us\ndefine Fascism as the introduction of a new conception of the relation\nbetween State and Citizen, a new conception of political reality.\nIt is, therefore, a doctrine, a system, and as such is philosophy\nexpressing itself in history. This admitted, it is necessary to guard\nagainst the abstract bent. of philosophical researches. The deepest\ncurrents of speculative thought would never bring about a single change\nof government by themselves; but then they do not exist by themselves.\nIt is only in the synthesis of history that we find them at play in the\nworld of historical reality, which is what it is because thoughts and\ndeeds are one.\n\nThe March on Rome did certainly mark the confluence of two streams\ncoming to mingle their waters between the banks of the Tiber. One was\ntorrential, the impulse coming from a fifty years\u2019 accumulation of\neconomic and political mistakes in Italy. The other was deeper, slower,\nthe contribution of centuries of Italian philosophy enriched by the\nintellectual thought of all Europe. The torrent is represented by the\npolitical antecedents of Fascism: the deep stream by the philosophical\nantecedents of Fascism.\n\nTo illustrate my figure a period of history presents itself as an\nexample. It does not correspond exactly to the present movement in\nItaly, but it is at any rate familiar to one and all: the French\nRevolution. We see there, also, the typical stream of philosophical\nlife carving a deep bed for the river to come: in the minds of\nintellectuals, in the consciousness of the people, abstract theories\nor works of artistic vulgarisation, prepare the bed for the river\nthat will become, under the impulsion of actual circumstances, an\nirresistible torrent. So that this revolution whose intellectual\npedigree makes it the offspring of Descartes, and Hobbes, of Grotius,\nLocke and the English political writers, besides the Encyclop\u00e6dists,\nVoltaire and Rousseau, has to the highest degree the qualities that\nmake it an element of universal life, and a fertilising principle\nin the politics of all Europe. On the other hand it receives,\nundoubtedly from the economic and political conditions of France, the\nparticular determinations that distinguish it as French, as belonging\nto the eighteenth century. The form it took actually between 1790\nand 1795 could not be introduced anywhere else; under that form it\nwas exclusively French, because\u2014we must insist on the point\u2014it had\nreceived it as its actual and concrete determination from its immediate\nantecedents.\n\nActuation, realisation, concrete life, whatever the field we move in,\nwhether we consider politics, artistic creation, or natural life, it\nrequires two elements, the one universal, the other particular. Now\nhistory shows that the universal element spreads, notwithstanding\nfrontiers and the will of men. Its force of expansion is a quality\ncommon to all ideas; but the particular is not to be imported, and\nit is as impossible to introduce it in foreign lands as it is to\nconfine the other to any land. Hence the political applications of\nthe same theories in different countries differ from each other as\ndo the countries themselves. These differences, economic, political,\nreligious, intellectual, in a word the historical differences existing\nbetween two countries determine the differences that the same theory\nwill undergo when it is adopted by the people of different nations.\n\nThe Italian patriots at the end of the eighteenth century were very\nfew, and all, without exception, intellectuals. Some belonged to\nthe higher or lower aristocracy, some belonged to the upper middle\nclass, but all were scholars, men of the widest reading. It would be\ndifficult to find nowadays a body of men so well informed. For one\nthing, production has increased immensely and life has lost the leisure\nthat allowed intellectual tastes to be satisfied. The fact remains\nthat at the close of that century Italy could boast of men aware of\nits inferior position, of its non-existence as a nation. Such men were\nready to try anything, and did try to imitate the French revolution in\nso far as they could by founding the small republics that lasted one\nseason or two, dying away like plants of distant countries, when they\nare planted in our soil. Their zeal, however, was not sterile, they\nfailed in their immediate purpose, because they wanted to introduce\nnot only ideas but the actual form in which these were expressed. A\nconstitution, a battle, the plan of a town, a project of economic\nreform, each of these things is an expression endowed with an \u00e6sthetic\nvalue varying with the degree of perfection attained by the man\nwho worked it out, and gave the idea that prompted him a suitable\nrealisation. But the essential quality of the \u00e6sthetic creator is to be\non a particular theme, the voice of his time and of the body of men he\nrepresents in his act of creation. The men of the revolution were by no\nmeans fair representatives of the people of France; but when they drew\nup the constitution they certainly realised on the whole the desiderata\nof most Frenchmen. Giving expression, giving form to the ideas that had\nagitated the whole century, they did it in the only way that could be a\nFrench way in those days.\n\nNow the will of Napoleon, when he wished Italy to be politically a\ncopy of France, was a very empirical will, and the men who tried\nto carry out his wishes because they loved Italy were not any more\ntranscendental. In this question they took no notice of what were\nthe spiritual and political conditions of their country, and yet\nsurely a constitution is an expression of mind. In all this however\ntheir blunder paved the way to a better understanding of the matter.\nEverybody realised that in order to have anything like an independent\ngovernment the first thing was to be a great and unified country. When\nthe ideas that had led in France to the Revolution and Republic were\ndeveloped in Italy, according to the mentality of the great Italians,\nthey blended with all that was particular to Italy and expressed\nthemselves in an Italian movement: the Risorgimento. It cannot be over\nemphasised, for the importance of the point is great; the same ideas\nthat caused the Republic to become for more than a century the form of\nFrench government, gave birth to the Kingdom of Italy.\n\nRoughly, the same can be said of Fascism. Its ideas and doctrine\nwill spread whether they meet with favour or hostility, because they\nare Italian just as Liberalism is English, that is to say they are\nItalian in their methods of actuation and perfectly universal in their\nphilosophical content.\n\n\u201cEquality, fraternity, liberty,\u201d was the eighteenth century cry, and\nit might be the cry of the Fascists. Their revolutionary contribution\nto the history of politics is the denial of natural rights, natural\nrights being understood as something the determination of which is\nanterior to the birth of man, as the quality of a cabbage or a rose\ntree is anterior to its birth. Right is so narrowly linked to duty that\nfor this school of thought it cannot be anterior to consciousness.\nTherefore man must be considered and rated in the State only according\nto spiritual value and actual economic or intellectual interest.\n\nThe natural rights of man are denied. The spiritual value, entitling\nman to citizenship, cannot be acquired by him once for all and enjoyed\nwithout effort. He must daily and continuously be working for the\nvindication of the rights he has won, and for the conquest of those\nhe seeks. Citizenship is not a chattel lying in a man\u2019s possession:\nits only reality is bound to the performing of the duties correlative\nof rights. There Fascism meets with all our religious communities;\nin all Israelite and Christian Communities or Churches the new-born\nchild is admitted on the pledge, taken for him by sponsors, that he\nwill discharge his duties and accept the law of the community of which\nhe becomes a member. Such a pledge he has to confirm on his coming to\nadult state.\n\nCitizenship becomes, finally, with the whole of political reality, a\nmoral, spiritual and Christian reality, and the only real equality of\nmen can be attained in a State in which each man is rated according\nto actual value. For citizenship, taken as a birthright of man, is a\nremains of Pagan times, when it was the lot of some to be born slaves\nand of some to be born citizens.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nLIBERALISM IN ITALY\n\n\nFor the foreigner interested in the political affairs of Italy a study\nof the pedigree of the two elements of Fascism is essential in order\nto distinguish what is exclusively Italian from what is to become\nuniversal. It is therefore necessary to trace, or at least attempt to\ntrace, this pedigree in spite of the difficulty of the task.\n\nFascism presents itself at first as being essentially the expression of\nthe national consciousness of Italy. So it is; but it must be stated\nat once that it is the national consciousness recently acquired by the\npeople of Italy, which, like an uncontrollable force, has worked itself\nout, taking Fascism as its expression. Without this distinction the\nstudent is induced by its nationalist character to see in the present\nmovement the last act of the long drama of wars and agitations that\nled to the independence and unification of the country. The truth is,\nthat though it is practically the epilogue of that drama, Fascism\ncannot be identified with the Risorgimento. The spirit which animated\nthe men of the days of Cavour and Garibaldi is totally and essentially\ndifferent from that which impels the followers of Mussolini to act as\nthey do. The wars of independence were due to the initiative of an\naristocratic minority; whose aristocratic and intellectual qualities\ndistinguished them and perhaps ensured their success. The leaders\nof the Risorgimento were not hampered by anything like a popular\nfollowing; and their eventual agreement as to what was best for their\ncause was always made certain by this intellectual selectness. All were\nable, like Garibaldi and Mazzini, to see things as they were and to act\naccordingly, not only to the extent of sacrificing their lives but of\nsacrificing their dearest ideals as well. Republicans, they accepted\nmonarchy; ministers, of their own free will they relinquished power to\nplace it in hands they thought more fit than their own to realise their\ndream; staunch Catholics, during their life they fought the Church\nin its temporal politics, in an age when the best educated priests\nwould not admit and could not even see the possibility of distinction\nbetween temporal and spiritual power. Only religious and idealistic men\ncan realise by how much such sacrifices surpassed for them the gift\nof money, liberty, or even life. There is one English word that sums\nup what these Italian liberators were, whether noblemen, solicitors,\nwriters, professors, officers, doctors: they were _gentlemen_ of good\nclassical education and wide reading who had assimilated what was best\nin Europe. The common people, one cannot insist too much upon the\nfact, remained indifferent at best, and that only as long as their\ninterests were not affected; the lower middle class were hostile, that\nis to say the shop people and all the multitude of small functionaries\nwho saw their daily bread dependent on the existing state of things,\nwere openly against any change. How could such people feel the need or\nsee the possibility of building up a nation, one nation, out of the\nharlequin coat presented by the map of Italy?\n\nThus a free hand was guaranteed to the small number of Italian\ngentlemen then endowed with heroic souls. They had nobody to consult,\nthey were a State in themselves, a State without a lower class.\nPerhaps for the last time in the history of the world we see there\nrealised the classical republic without a political plebs. No wonder\nthat they worked a miracle; they belonged politically to different\nstates, and yet by the force of their ideal they attained that oneness\nof conscience which gives personality and reality to a nation. The\nspirit of the nation existed before its material realisation; there\nis no better illustration of the new notion that Fascism is bringing\nto the fore in the world of concrete history, that of the nation as\na spiritual reality, independent of geographical and ethnographical\ndeterminations. Never in history has this notion received a more\ncomplete and actual realisation than in this first dawn of the national\nlife in Italy. The reality of the nation had its first affirmation in\nthe sacrifice of these men, for it is obvious that no sober man would\ngive up life, liberty, wealth, for something unreal; and, in fact, the\nreality of Italy as a nation ceased to be questioned then and there.\n\nEvery advantage, of course, has its disadvantage. As the pioneers of\nthe Risorgimento did not need the people, they overlooked all the\nproblems that the necessity of obtaining popular collaboration would\nhave compelled them to face. All economic and social questions were\noverlooked except by a very few; the spiritual education of the lower\nclass was not even suggested in their programme of action. Their aims\nwere the independence and the political unity of Italy, and to that\ngoal they directed their hearts and minds indifferent to the needs of\npractical life, and to all the obstacles that seemed to make their\ndream a theme for the lyrical effusions of poets. In fact they were\npoets, all of them, for they created a reality out of an ideal vision\nthat was more an intuition than an intellectual conception. The very\nmanner in which they carried out their revolution was \u00e6sthetic more\nthan practical; they shut their eyes to all that was in contradiction\nto their dream, exactly as the artist does who strives to express an\nintuition through material realisation, and in order not to let the\nobjective world crowd his mind deliberately shuts his eyes to it, to\neverything that is not his present ideal.\n\nThe economic and social questions could not in any case have been\nfaced, still less dealt with, as long as the nation was not a political\nreality. Any attempt would have been sterile and perhaps even harmful.\nFirst, it would have led the people to believe that under the then\npresent conditions the economic organisation of each little state\nmight have been so planned as to ensure the material well-being of\nthe population, that they could receive a greater share of political\nimportance and therefore of administrative attention from the local\ngovernments and thus be better off in the harlequin coat than under\nthe flag of a united Italy. It was, moreover, expedient to hold to the\nsingleness of purpose that was more likely to make action coherent all\nthrough the peninsula; only such singleness of aim made it possible to\nmen of so different temperament and breeding as professional men and\nnoblemen, Tuscans and Sicilians, Freemasons and ardent Catholics, to\nthink and therefore to act in positive harmony.\n\nWhen a bullet has hit the bull\u2019s-eye it has fulfilled its purpose, and\nstays there in helpless immobility or falls to the ground a useless\nthing. It was meant for that shot, and is bound to be purposeless when\nit has made its mark. The generations of Carlo Alberto and Mazzini, of\nVittorio Emmanuele and Cavour, had certainly hit the mark when Rome had\nbecome the capital of Italy. Was it to be expected that men who had\nidentified themselves with the goal should be able to take another goal\nand fit themselves to a new task? Or could it be that the realisation\nof the new State should bring, as its immediate consequence, a\nready-made generation of statesmen? Indeed, if there is one thing that\ncannot be produced by a magic wand, it is a body of able and trained\npolitical men.\n\nWhen the days of heroic deeds were over the makers of Italy turned\nto the government of the new realm and found themselves faced by all\nthe problems of national life. Inspiration and idealism proved out of\nplace, and although theirs was, what would have been called in England\nor in France, a Conservative government, they had to rely on a very\nstrange electoral body. While they did not extend the vote at once,\nthey found in the middle class a set of Arrivists with an imperative\negoism that was to prove the curse of political life in Italy. It\nis difficult for an English, French, or American citizen to realise\nthe kind of problems with which these men were beset. Above all it\nis difficult to an Englishman; England has had five or six centuries\nof political experience, a length of time sufficient to produce\nelectors and mandatories able to realise what are the duties of the\nexecutive as well as of the legislature. In Italy, on the other hand,\nthe nineteenth century has seen all stage of political development\nsucceeding one another in a hurly-burly that has a good deal in common\nwith the succession of the events of a man\u2019s life on a cinema film.\nHe passes from childhood to youth, and on to manhood, maturity and old\nage in a couple of hours. If he actually could crowd all experience\ninto a couple of years the proportion would be better; but he would\nhave no fairer notion of reality and of his own rights and duties at\nany stage of his life than the Italians could be expected to have when\nthey had to pass in less than fifty years through the political stages\nsuccessively experienced by the people of other countries in several\ncenturies.\n\nNow no student of the history of politics, or even of art, ignores the\nfact that when a nation has reached a political or artistic form it\nis in the process of getting a mastery of that form that criticisms\narise, and that out of criticism comes the idea, confused at first,\nthen clearer and clearer, of the form that is to supersede it. This is,\nin fact, the process of dialectic: it is the dialectic of history; and\nin spite of the wish to avoid any special terminology, it is better to\ncall the process by its own name. At first people struggle to reach a\ncertain form of government, and that moment of dialectic ends when the\nform is reached; they then apply it more and more fully and, during\nits application, discover its limitations; this second moment ends in\ncriticism of the whole theory; finally they set themselves to remedy\nits shortcomings. This last moment coincides in the people with the\nfree consciousness of dissatisfaction, and in the leaders with a clear\nunderstanding of the new tendencies to be satisfied, so that it is\nnot theoretical to say that the people learn to use a new form whilst\nthey are using, then discarding, the one that came before it. In Italy\nnothing of the sort happened. The international culture of its scholars\nput them in contact with all that was best or worst in the politics\nof Europe. They would have been ashamed to be behindhand in what was\nconsidered social progress.\n\nThen two uncommon factors came into play after 1870. To make Italy, it\nhad been necessary to trample upon a good deal of historical tradition.\nNot all the local governments were as bad during the eighteenth\ncentury as they were said to be. Moreover, paramount had been the\nprestige of the Popes. Against all the Conservative forces the men of\nthe Risorgimento had appeared as a lot of Jacobins; they had to fight\nthe Church in its temporal power, and although this power was not\nessential to religion it had behind it a tradition of ten centuries.\nWith the government of the Popes the whole Italian civilisation was\nclosely connected; indeed, the best brains of Italy have always\nrealised that, whatever the faults of the Church, Italy is first of\nall a Catholic country. Anti-clericals in their political activity,\nmen like de Sanctis, would not have printed a word against the Church\nas historians. Indeed, the greatest thinkers of the time, Gioberti and\nRosmini, tried very hard to be good Catholics and great philosophers at\nthe same time.\n\nYet since they could not doubt that Italy must have Rome for its\ncapital as the seal of its political unity, the Popes had to be\ndeprived of their temporal sovereignty. The feeling about Rome was one\nof historical mysticism, and seldom, if ever, have men found themselves\nthrown into an irreligious attitude by a sentiment of that kind. No\ncontradiction could have been more profound, for it brought these\nardent lovers of their remotest past to make use of forces that were\nantagonistic to the one institution that linked their present to this\nsame past. However, there was no alternative; adopting Illuminism as\none of the chief currents animating modern life, they had as their most\nprecious support the anti-Catholic movement, to which, as a matter\nof fact, a great many of them belonged. Anti-Catholicism had a great\nweakness in that it was not a national product, but had been introduced\ninto political life as a necessary stimulant to rouse the people from\ntheir slumbers, as will be seen later on; now that they were awake it\ndivided the nation and prevented the welding of the new tradition to\nits history of twenty centuries.\n\nThe statesmen of this epoch had no experience of the administration and\ngovernment of a big State: they were not conscious of the problems of\ninternational relations; they knew nothing of the economic and social\nexigencies of a population exceeding thirty millions of souls.\n\nThe people had no political education whatsoever. On the other hand,\nthe leaders would not be retrograde and became more and more liberal,\nat a rate that did not allow the people to be prepared by experience\nfor successive steps in popular government. The sequence of reforms was\nnot historical, was not dialectical: it did not correspond with the\nspiritual and economic development of the people, but was introduced to\nmake up for lost time and bring Italy up to the Western European level\nas fast as possible.\n\nWith no tradition to make up ballast, the so-called \u201cRight\u201d could not\nbe termed Conservative because it originated in a revolution, and\nit kept its old ideal as a target after it had been realised, and\ntherefore had ceased to be a principle of action.\n\nWhat was to be expected under such conditions? The wonder is that the\nnation did not go to pieces, and that the work of two generations of\nconstructive men was not destroyed by their incapacity to husband what\nthey had created. In the face of such facts one cannot help thinking of\nVico and his identification of divine Providence with the rationality\nof history. This people was politically at the nursery stage; it had\nno modern political science of its own, and therefore none of its\nlegislative acts were based on actual and practical understanding of\nwhat were the national necessities. They were inspired by the example\nof foreign governments and, consequently, could not meet Italy\u2019s\npeculiar necessities. What did for the others could not do for Italy.\nYet it was impossible to keep back a people so well informed of modern\nprogress.\n\nThe Italian Liberals, it must be said for their immortal fame, had the\nclear-sightedness necessary to attain their aims, inasmuch as they\nhad reduced them to a formula that could be accepted by all the other\npatriots. \u201cItaly, one and free,\u201d was their aim, and to this aim nobody\ncould object. The flaw of such an aim is that it is too simple to\ncorrespond to actual reality. It sounds like an algebraical axiom, and,\nindeed, is just as abstract in its basis as any mathematical formula.\n\nFor the Liberals the nation was exclusively constituted by its\nterritorial expansion and by the unification of the people of the\ndifferent states therein included. They could not change their aim,\nand when they had to administer the new realm their eagerness and\nsingleness of purpose often blinded them to reality. As the unity\nthey had reached was formal, if one can term it so, their legislation\npurposely ignored the differences between Sicilians and Tuscans; and\nin their haste to unify internally what was already externally one,\nthey imposed what could at best be formal and artificial unity. Every\nannexation had been preceded by a local struggle, and success was not\nsufficient to cause equanimity in the triumphant party. All that had\nexisted under the old r\u00e9gime was an object of hatred to the Liberals;\nand their ministers, even when they kept above such feelings, were\nnone the less unable to discriminate between the antiquated local laws\nand those that were still useful and even good. They destroyed local\ninstitutions, often created to meet actual requirements, to impose, for\ninstance, upon the people of Sicily Piedmontese laws, the inspiration\nof which was usually imported from France or England. They had the\nimpression that it would be dangerous to the unity of the country to\nkeep some of the local laws, or to make new ones to meet the particular\nneeds of this or that province. In the minds of these passionate\ncreators of unity, unity was a quite fragile affair, produced by\nthem _ex tempore_; they did not see that it could only be the result\nof a slow elaboration, bound to go on for generations, and that the\nfinal success of their enterprise was more likely to be ensured by an\nintelligent interpretation of tradition than by the application of\nexotic doctrines that did not fit any of the historical characteristics\nof the country.\n\nThe same singleness of vision was to prove blinding in regard to\nseveral other points; but it will be enough to state here that the fact\nthat the men who had sacrificed themselves to the cause of unity had\nall been gentlemen, led those in power to consider the higher classes\nas exclusively constituting the nation they had brought into being. The\nrest were politically non-existent; and in the haste to develop the\ncommercial and industrial possibilities of the country a good deal too\nmuch was done to enthrone capital and invite thereby the advent of\nSocialism.\n\nFinally, another cause of trouble\u2014indeed, another consequence of the\nsame lack of political tradition and education\u2014was the impossibility\nof forming proper party organisations. Who was Left\u2014and who was Right?\nDiscrimination was impossible. Parties, like all historical organisms,\nare called into being and developed according to, and in consequence\nof, the political development of the country. In Italy they had to be\nproduced, planned and organised all at once, by the mere empirical\ndecisions of men, who, whatever their ability, or the loftiness of\ntheir ideals, could not avoid the arbitrariness and the errors to\nwhich the best individual men are subject, limited as their views are\nby their personal feelings or ambitions. Therefore, what happened\nwas this: some followers of Mazzini who had joined the Liberals in\nthe struggle for liberty, stood out as republicans; some who had\nfollowed Garibaldi and who had for ten years longed to take Rome from\nthe Pope, became anti-clerical democrats; the rest were not to be\nclearly distinguished from one another because a man who was a staunch\nmonarchist may have been in the same time anti-Catholic if he was a\nFreemason, whilst another might have had strong democratic tendencies\nand yet stand for tradition. The best instance of this may have been\nCrispi: he belonged to the Left, and certainly often acted and felt\nlike a man of the Right.\n\nSuch confusion was to reach its climax when, after 1866 and 1870, it\nwas understood that the king and the government, having obtained the\nVeneto from Austria, had given up the intention of adding Trento and\nTrieste to the kingdom. Then the extreme Left joined irredentism to\nits anti-Catholic activity. They went on speaking of the ethnographic\nright that such provinces had to claim themselves as Italian, and\nthey artfully bound their anti-religious campaign to a programme that\nsounded highly idealistic. No wonder that the different governments\nthat succeeded each other should lose their time fighting the ghost\nof financial bankruptcy. One thing only can be brought against them,\nand it is that though all men of great culture they did not understand\nhow unhistorical were their actions. They should have known that their\nconception of State and citizen, their idea of what is the function\nof the government, had been taken ready made from other countries and\nlazily accepted without any proper study of its antecedents. Some were\nAnglophile, some under their new Germanophilism hid the most perfect\nassimilation of French doctrines taken in their easiest and, therefore,\nmost abstract formulas. None took liberty for what the word had meant\nof actual and positive political conquest to the average Englishman\nof the seventeenth century; they did not even take it for what it had\nmeant of practical improvement to the Frenchman of the eighteenth\ncentury; they took it as a rhetorical figure with an abstract concept\nbehind it, as soon as it ceased to mean independence from foreign rule.\n\nThey termed themselves Liberals, however, and when they came to be\nministers of a Liberal government they professed sometime a very\ncurious notion of what such a government should be; Cairoli put it down\nin three words, _reprimere non prevenire_; an excellent motto perhaps,\nwhen the citizens are used to the exercise of their duties and rights,\nbut soon proved to be dangerous in a country where traditions had been\ntrampled upon during half a century. In less than a decade Italy was\nthe prey of anarchy, for in 1878, the same Cairoli, had to defend the\nking\u2019s life in Naples at the risk of his own, and in Florence and Pisa\nbombs were thrown against the crowds rejoicing over the king\u2019s narrow\nescape. The Liberals looked at the way legislation worked in France and\nin England, but, like all followers of Illuminism, they took it for\ngranted that there existed a certain kind of animal which was the same\nwherever and whenever you find Man, and they looked at the application\nof the system, not at its origin, not at its philosophical and\npolitical antecedents; in short, they did not see that it was brought\nabout by the whole history of the countries in which it flourished, and\nthey believed that it would work wherever men lived together in nations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nNATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM\n\n\nUnder such circumstances what was the government for the political\nclasses? A coach in a land of brigands; for the most popular elements\na coach to be attacked on the roadside; for the better elements, a\ncoach they had a right to drive, whip in hand. Every man stood up\nagainst the government either begging or threatening; so that it is no\nwonder that the next generation of gentlemen mostly stood aside and\nshunned politics, seeing that at best the men who mixed in it were\nmoved by selfish ambition, or were a vulgar crew of Arrivists and\nmischief plotters. Abstention on the one side was, however, a form\nof selfishness, as harmful to the state as Arrivism on the other.\nProvided they kept clean hands, the abstentionists did not mind that\nthe national conscience should be either corrupted or lulled to sleep\nby the people whose interest it was that it should slumber. Obviously\ntheir withdrawal from public life had the same cause as the ambition\nand the unscrupulous opportunism of the others. After fifty years of\nheroic life and feelings, they wanted to attend to their own business\nand enjoy life privately. Public cares and struggles had been the order\nof the day for half a century, and public conscience relaxed; with\na sudden eclipse of national consciousness, Italy lost the pride of\nautonomy in foreign affairs and ceased to realise in deeds the part it\nhad to play in the history of the world.\n\nIts foreign policy is the best index of the spiritual conditions of the\nperiod, and according to the historian, Michele Rosi (who is neither\na Fascist nor a Liberal, nor a Socialist, because he is a man born to\nput together facts, historical facts, and live a passionate life among\nthem instead of living it among men) the line of conduct of Italian\nforeign ministers at this stage can be described as the policy of men\nwho distrusted themselves more then they distrusted others. Rosi does\nnot say so, but the facts he puts together do say so.\n\nOf this the best proof was the Triple Alliance. In 1873 Marco Minghetti\nwent with King Vittorio Emmanuele II to Berlin and to Vienna to discuss\na second alliance with Germany and more cordial relations with the\nAustrian court. The followers of Garibaldi raised an outcry as they\nsaw in this a sure proof that the King of Italy was giving up Trento\nand Trieste, whereas it had never been thought in the past that Rome\nor Venice might have been so abandoned. In Parliament, however, the\nLeft was quite willing to lean on the shoulder of Germany, and was\nsubmitting even to an alliance with Austria, although some of the\nmembers had dark remembrances of its rule. But at the same time they\nflirted with France, who was going more and more to the Left, and whose\nanti-clericalism seemed to cheer on their own anti-Catholicism.\n\nIn 1877 Francesco Crispi, the best statesman of Italy at the time,\none of those men of the Left whose mentality brought them mostly to\nthink and often to act as if they had belonged to the Right, made\na diplomatic tour to the capitals of Germany, Austria, France and\nEngland. He had one open aim, and another one not quite so fully\nacknowledged, which was to look for support against a possible\naggression that was feared both from Paris and Vienna. The impression\nhe received was that Berlin might accept an alliance with Italy\nagainst France, on the understanding that Austria would be left free\nto do what she liked in the East. Thirty years before, Italy, still\nin the making and far from seeing yet her way to unity, had attacked\nsingle-handed the greatest empire of Europe in an offensive war; now,\nout of fear of a possible attack from France, which Bismarck himself\ndeclared very unlikely, she entered into an alliance from which she\nreceived only orders and prohibitions. When the Congress of Berlin took\nplace, all that the representative of Italy could do was of so little\navail, that the Germans declared that the French and the Italians\nhad to settle the question of Tunis between themselves. This did not\nadmit of any compensation to Italy for the Austrian occupation of\nBosnia-Herzegovina and expansion in the East. The Italian policy at\nthat congress betrayed a total incapacity to display the policy of a\ngreat State in foreign affairs. The reasons were threefold, the men in\npower had a very poor understanding of the forces and the interests of\nthe country and, in consequence, could not act according to these; they\nwere holding on to ideologies, that had served their time and whose\nhigh-sounding rhetoric could only help them to hide the vacuum of their\nminds; finally, they had a sense that their home affairs were getting\nmore and more out of hand and this feeling may have been the most\ncramping of all the circumstances in which they stood.\n\nNegative as it was, the attitude of the government was in harmony with\nthat of Parliament. When, in January, 1879, the Senate disapproved\nof its foreign policy, the head of the government, who was Depretis,\nshifted all responsibility by saying that, as Prime Minister, he\nhad in that department followed faithfully the traditions of the\nRight, although he belonged to the Left. In February of the same\nyear, Mussolino strongly advised them to enter into an alliance with\nGermany; he knew, said he, that Bismarck would accept it unwillingly,\nas he believed the Italians to be unfaithful, but that he would do\nso nevertheless, needing Italy against France. Nothing could be less\nheroic, than a Senate which had good grounds to feel pride in the newly\nachieved national independence, and was yet so low spirited that it\ncould accept an alliance on such grounds.\n\nThe ideal of the Risorgimento had been realised, and as the new\nleaders _had no new ideals_ they had nothing further to realise; they\nwere bodies without souls, with nothing that might give them a chance\nto display the gifts with which nature had so largely endowed them.\nMaterialists in philosophy they strove to make the country more and\nmore materialist, fighting religion under the names of clericalism and\nobscurantism.\n\nObviously what kept the various governments of Italy from having a\ndignified foreign policy was that the country was in a state bordering\non anarchy. One cause of this was lack of experts in all the political\nclasses, devoid, as the best men were, of personal or traditional\nexperience to help in the application of their imported legislation;\nbut the main cause was undoubtedly the amorphous state of the working\nclasses. If man is to be called a political animal, the labourers of\nItaly were not men fifty years ago. They did not care what happened\nand did not think they had anything to say in the matter: they were\npolitically unconscious. Not that they were stupid: their art, their\nsongs, their traditions attest the contrary.\n\nTheir political unconsciousness, far from making things easier,\nrendered a good Liberal government very nearly impossible; for apathy\nand indifference in the lower class, while it may be very well under an\nabsolute monarchy of the patriarchal type, under a Liberal constitution\nis apt to prove a curse. First, the lower middle class kept drawing men\nfrom the people, and these men, with the natural gift of adaptation the\nItalian shows to a greater degree than the slower northern races, rose\ntoo quickly and too quickly became conscious of their plebian force and\nof the opportunities offered to them by the difficulties under which\nthe government was working. Among these men and among the crowds of\nhalf-intellectuals employed by the State in the innumerable offices\ncreated by the centralising administration, in the national schools, in\nthe railways, post services and so on, the members of Parliament, who\nbelonged to the Left, recruited their votes. How quickly these electors\nrealised that their chances of getting all the political importance\nin their hands rested on the extension of the franchise need not be\nemphasised. The dates are eloquent, Rome became the capital of Italy\nin 1870, in 1882 the franchise is extended, and immediately a workman,\nMaffi, and a pure Socialist, Andrea Costa, are elected.\n\nWithout attempting a sketch of the development of Socialism in Italy,\nit must be said that it certainly did a great deal of good to the\ncountry. It aroused the working masses from their slumber and bettered\ntheir material conditions, which badly wanted bettering. To stir the\npeople out of their amorphous state and make them conscious of their\nrights was a very wholesome operation. It would have been better to\nhave made them realise at the same time that rights never go without\nduties, and that to co-operate in public life they had to undertake the\none in order to get the other. But this, however, was more than could\nbe expected from agitators, who often had, themselves, a very poor\nnotion of the relation of right and duties. Their incitement to the\npeople was to make material well-being, the ultimate end of all effort.\n\nVulgar as it was, yet it was the proper aim for a materialistic age,\nand it had the advantage of being concrete, positive, and within range\nof the people\u2019s rudimentary political understanding. Therefore it\nworked. It had the first quality that an idea must have to move people\nto action; it corresponded to the real needs of the workers.\n\nThe nobler side of Socialism, that which had made it highly idealistic\nand has made its ultimate end a dreamy Messianism, did not strike root\nin Italy. It did not appeal to the people, and whenever it fascinated\nsome stray poet or idealist, like Andrea Costa or Mussolini\u2019s father,\nthey failed to arouse an echo in the minds of the labourers. This\nshould have been sufficient to show that it did not suit the Italian\nmentality. Mankind, the fraternity of mankind, the lost paradise\nreconquered by the mutual love of men, could not mean much to Italian\nears. It sounded abstract, and at best did not show much chance of\nbeing realised by the present generation. The Socialist leaders had\nto attract followers with more concrete things, with plans that could\nbe realised, and to arouse in them a passion for an actual object.\nConsequently they harped on the necessity of getting better wages for\nless work. They planned Labour organisations which gradually grew\nstronger, and they taught the workers to hate their employers.\n\nYet this was not the worst part of the leaders\u2019 activity; that was\nthe corrupting consciousness they gave the workers of an unlimited\npolitical power without any corresponding duties. Out of unfairly\ntreated men they made bullies, most unhappy bullies, the worst kind of\nbullies. The torture of Mussolini\u2019s youth was this rapid decadence of\nSocialism in Italy, although it had the advantage over other parties\nof a stock of general ideas and a definite programme. It was only the\nweakness of other parties which made it look strong until the war and\nduring the years that followed the peace; for as far back as 1910 the\nhistoric ideas it had brought to Italy had yielded their crop. Had it\nnot been so, Socialism, between 1918 and 1920, would have worked out\nin open revolution. As it was, it had built up a class organisation\nthat was the first regular Party in modern Italy, and this meant\nconsiderable experience for the whole nation; it had besides bettered\nthe material conditions of life of the lower class and awakened them to\npolitical consciousness, which is a contribution to the development of\nthe country as a modern State that cannot be overrated.\n\nLiberalism, be it of the Right or of the Left, had had an Italian\nform, which had proved its consonance with the historical position of\nthe country by the efficiency with which it had realised its ideal.\nItaly, free from foreign rule and politically one under the House of\nSavoy, was doubtless the creation of Italian Liberalism. But as a\nhome governing party its inefficiency was obvious; one may think that\nits failure was due to its non-national stock of ideas, which led to\nthe application of foreign legislation to a country whose needs were\nnot the same as those of the nations in which this administrative and\npolitical Liberalism had come out of a long historical evolution.\n\nSocialism, on the other hand, was yeast, and as yeast it was very good\nfor Italy, for the unleavened masses rose into shape and life under its\naction; thereby emerging from their amorphousness they entered into the\npolitical world and brought with them the force and life of numbers.\nIt brought them also to the level of the European proletariat and\nintroduced the Party discipline and organisation that the other Italian\nparties had not needed, as their singleness of aim and the loftiness\nof their ideals had been sufficient to keep their high-minded members\nin unity. Yet it proved a curse, as its leaders were unable to realise\nthat the wretched means they had to resort to, in order to arouse men\ninto action, were due to the fact that the higher side of Socialism did\nnot fit the mentality of the people.\n\nAnother party must be now considered, and that commands a great deal of\nrespect from any foreigner that may have watched with loving eyes the\nlife of Italy: Nationalism. Corradini and Federzoni may be looked upon\nas its leaders, and their followers were a mere handful of men. They\nhad a clear notion of what they wanted, and to a certain extent they\nmay be considered as the rightful heirs of the Risorgimento. Again they\nwere all gentlemen, gentlemen being taken as the English equivalent of\n_vir_, implying the sterling quality of the individual and not at all\nhis social position or his \u00e6sthetic refinement, which may be merely\nthe consequence of wealth. Small minorities are always to be found at\nthe origin of any great political movement as it is the conviction of\nthe few which carries away the multitude of men. But then the crucial\npoint is that their convictions must have magnetic attraction for the\ngeneral public. And the Nationalists had not this. Their ideas were\ntoo high and, at the same time, they were obsolete, besides being no\nmore Italian than those of Liberalism or Socialism.\n\nThe Nationalists\u2019 idea of a nation was as materialist as their aims\nwere idealist.[1] Now this would be sufficient to condemn to sterility\nthe best wills in the world. To state this plainly, the easiest way is\nto take man as a simile for nation. There are two ways of looking at\na man: he is _one out of many_, or he is _the one central reality_.\nAs one out of many he knocks in every sense against the reality of\nthe many, and is therefore identified by his very limitations. Such a\nconception of the man is evidently negative. He is appreciated not so\nmuch by what he actually does, but by what he has done, or possesses;\nnot so much by what he is, but by the rank he occupies, and which may\noften be determined independently of his ACTUAL value. But as the\none central reality a man cannot come into competition with other\nobjects of appreciation; he can no longer be gauged from outside. Now,\nobviously, from the world of objective and natural reality, we are\nshifting to the subjective and spiritual world. We have in front of\nus no longer an individual belonging to the world of things\u2014we have a\nperson. Common wisdom has for centuries professed that to understand\na person\u2019s motives it is necessary to put oneself in that person\u2019s\nposition; and daily experience shows that we understand the people we\nlove better, because we can make ourselves one with them and judge them\nfrom their own point of view. To appreciate a personality this method\nis indispensable; for it is not in the deeds of his past that a man\nmust be judged\u2014he may have been a hero in the last war and be a coward\nin his present family life\u2014they are now extrinsic to him, unless he\ngoes on living them and making them for ever his spiritual experience.\nHe must be judged by what he is doing actually. Neither must one\nmeasure him by his property, but by what he is still able to produce;\nnor by the regard or contempt of the people who surround him, which is\nbased on what he has done; nor on what his people were, but by what\nhe actually is. None of these conditions of appreciation is fulfilled\nas long as we look at a man from outside and weigh his manly worth by\ncomparing his achievement, or his property, to that of other people.\nPast deeds should not raise him one whit in our appreciation unless he\ncontinues them with perfect conscience of their value, for their actual\nand his personal value depend exclusively of the conscience he has of\nsuch value and of his aptitude to keep it actual.\n\nOf this fact Corradini and his friends had excellent examples in Italy.\nSome of the landlords, who owned relatively small estates and quite\ninsufficient capital, managed to bring their land to the highest rate\nof productiveness, so that the actual production was superior to that\nof estates of a much bigger acreage. The owners of the _latifondi_,\non the other hand, were not all sufficiently rich to have their lands\nploughed, and those who were did not always do so, although some Roman\nprinces did cultivate thoroughly, very often as much from patriotism as\nfrom the wish to increase their incomes. Conspicuous among them were\nsome leading Nationalists. They could see from this that the importance\nof a man as a landlord was not altogether dependent on the area of\nhis estate and on his capital, and that it varied according to the\nconsciousness he had of what the value of his estate should be and the\ncapacity he had for realising it. But they did not think of the nation\nas of a man whose value, practically as well as spiritually, depends\nnot so much on the capacity he has for doing things, as on his being\nconscious of such capacity. Therefore, they looked at Italy measuring\nit by the poor figure it cut in foreign policy, by its colonies, by\nits financial weakness, comparing it always in their minds with other\ncountries; in a word, judging it from outside as if it had belonged\nto the field of natural science instead of belonging to the world of\nhistory, which is after all the world of Mind.\n\nThank God, however, \u201c_le coeur a des raisons que la raison ne conna\u00eet\npas_,\u201d and some of these men, Corradini above all, were men with\ngreat hearts and deep souls. Out of faith and love of their country\nthey realised what their conception of political reality would have\nkept them from seeing, namely that the root of all the evil was that\nthe people of Italy had almost allowed the stifling of their souls.\nReligion in some provinces had been, so to speak, extirpated by the\nanti-Catholic democrats, republicans and radicals; both religion\nand patriotism had been lulled to sleep by the Socialists. The only\npolitical cell still living and strong was the family. The Nationalists\nwere beset by another cause of sterility, the men these leaders\nrecruited ... did they share their religious and truly patriotic\nmotives? All did not, and that was the misery of it. Yet Corradini and\nsome others were men of faith, just as much as Cavour and Mazzini had\nbeen; they could get men to join them in holding aloft a torch whose\nflame flickered in the cold twilight of Garibaldi\u2019s Italy. They kept\nthe sacred fire of Rome burning, and openly preached self-sacrifice,\nwhilst great artists and sceptic scholars invited the youth of the\nupper class to enjoy life and shut themselves up in selfish existence.\n\nThe Nationalists were men of faith, and as everything is possible to\nhim that believeth, they kept working for their cause a certain number\nof followers who had joined them in the hope that better openings\nwould be obtained for the export of Italian products and for Italian\nemigrants if a strong Nationalist foreign policy could be substituted\nfor the existing weak one. For the Nationalists the nation was a\ntranscendent reality, objectively considered as to the individual. Such\nconception is not peculiar to Italy by any means; yet it was modified\nin its Italianisation, but always in a way that made it more and more a\npolicy for the gentry. A good deal of culture (I don\u2019t mean philosophy,\nbut a true sense of history and a sound judgment) was at the basis of\nit, and this did not tend to make it a popular movement. To sacrifice\noneself to something transcendent, to an historical construction, is\nnot for the mob: not even for the lower middle classes, absorbed as\nthey are by the problems of daily life.\n\nThere we touch what really distinguishes the Fascists from the\nNationalists, for whom the State belongs to natural reality, is\ntranscendent in its relation to the individual, and negatively\nconceived in its relation to other states, where it appears one amongst\nmany. It is a great engine that needs the co-operation of all the\ncitizens to make it work, but it _does_ exist independently of the\ncitizens. Philosophically this conception belongs to the eighteenth\ncentury. For the Fascists, the State is not transcendent in its\nrelation to the citizens: it is immanent; it is their own spiritual\nand economical life in its political summing up. In its relation to\nother states it is not negatively conceived as one amongst many; for\nits citizens, it is their national self, whilst the other nations\nare constitutive of their national non-self. The positiveness of the\nState for its citizens implies therefore, for them, the negativeness\nof the other states.[2] Such a conception sounds merely theoretical,\nand yet it was not born in words. Its painful birth was the outcome\nof Mussolini\u2019s experience as a Socialist and a party leader. Words\nhave never been given to this newest of all the conceptions that Italy\nis contributing to the world of politics except in an answer he gave\nto the judges who, in 1911, were condemning him at Forli. Besides\nthis very curt answer, he never expressed it except in deeds, so that\nthe form under which it is given here is contributed by the author.\nThe rest of the doctrine that can be inferred from his four years\u2019\nspeeches, legislation and administration, can be traced in the whole\nof the philosophical works produced by Italian idealism; but this,\nalthough perfectly consonant above all with Gentile\u2019s theories, was\ncertainly one of Mussolini\u2019s most original ideas.\n\nThe task of the government is to raise the level and increase the value\nof the citizens, attending not to the organisation of every branch of\nlife manifestation, but to the regulation or rather systematisation of\nsuch organisation in order to have always the most intimate fusion of\nstate and citizens. The empirical self requires that the peasant should\nplough his field, sow the seed and reap the harvest. All this he is\nbound to do to satisfy his material needs and the work thus considered\nis certainly not ennobling, since man works as the slave of hunger.\nFascism says to the peasant: \u201cThou shalt no longer plough, sow, reap\nfor thyself, that is to say _exclusively for thy material self, but for\nthe State, which is that same empirical self plus its transcendental\ncomplement_.\u201d Hence ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the\nwork of man, slave of his material needs, but of man transcending them,\n_without disregarding them_, however, and lifting thereby his daily\noccupation to the dignity of moral realisation of his own economic\nvalue.\n\nThe only precedent that this application of Fascism seems to have had\nis the Christian sanctification of work, which is undoubtedly one of\nthe noblest gifts bestowed by our religion upon mankind. The study of\nFascism as a doctrine will offer many such coincidences.\n\nThe State must be universally present as a moral factor in every\nbranch of its citizens\u2019 activity. It is in fact the all-pervading\nconsciousness that man must have of his citizenship which expresses\nitself as the government. Obviously extension of territory should be\nimmaterial if the people of a country could actually be lifted to this\nhigh state of political realisation.\n\nBut even at the stage reached by Fascism it is easy to see how it\naffects the policy of foreign states towards Italy. Bring the people\nto such a degree of political consciousness that every activity may\nbe so directed that it ensures at the same time personal and national\nincrease of value, then you can very nearly cease to trouble about\nforeign policy, which must be the projection of the home policy, that\nis to be the supreme affair of a government intent on the valorisation\nof its country.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE EUROPEAN WAR AND ITS EFFECTS\n\n\nIn March, 1914, the cabinet of Giolitti retired owing to some\ndifferences with the Radicals. The moment was full of difficulties and\nthe new ministry was likely to have to deal with strikes and riots at\nhome and complications out of Italy. Sonnino, leader of the Opposition\nand one of the best men that the Right could boast of, refused to form\na new cabinet and managed to have the office entrusted to Salandra.\nThe German Emperor, passing through Venice on his way to Corfou, had a\nlong talk with the king and the Marquis of San Giuliano, the fact being\nconsidered a new proof of Italo-German friendship apparently even by\nthe government, whose endeavours were all directed to secure a majority\nin both Houses and to avert the storm that was threatening at home.\n\nThe railways were on the verge of a general strike, the state officials\nwere demanding better wages and tried to enforce their requests by\nforming a trade union; workmen and peasants made riots in various\nprovinces, especially in the Romagne and Marche, where in June the\nRed Week gave the spectacle almost of a revolution. There however the\nSocialists and Republicans made such a poor show that it is likely to\nhave done a good deal towards shaking Mussolini\u2019s faith in popular\nrevolution. Salandra and his ministers were so beset that they let\nforeign affairs go unheeded or at least treated them as a matter of\nminor urgency. It must have been a great shock to them to realise the\nimminence of war.\n\nWhen the war broke out involving all the great European Powers the\npublic generally believed Italy to be bound to back the Triple\nAlliance. Immediately the Socialists and the extreme Left stirred up\na campaign on the ground that the Italian people were pacifists and\nsupporters of international Socialism. It is not easy to say whether,\neven had it been pledged to do so, the government would have been able\nto obtain the support of the nation to enter war immediately. Morally\nthe people were not ready to accept a war without attack or without\nprovocation from somebody.[3] On the first of August Italy declared\nneutrality and on that day the _Giornale d\u2019Italia_ clearly stated that\nsuch neutrality was not like that of Holland or Switzerland, and above\nall should not be considered as definitive.\n\nThe tenor of the press showed on which side an eventual intervention\nof Italy would take place. Everybody was either neutralist or\ninterventionist, but nobody was in favour of an intervention on\nthe side of the Triple Alliance. The most Germanophile never went\nfarther than neutralism; all that they hoped and prayed for was the\nnon-intervention of Italy.\n\nThe argument of the neutralist papers was based on a statement of\nthe economic and individual sacrifices that war would involve, and\na plea that Italy could not yet be fit to enter such a conflict.\nAnti-idealists or sceptics (as many of the sons of the heroes of the\nRisorgimento were) they all agreed to regard life as the supreme value\nand material well-being as its natural frame. Of war they only saw the\ndestructive side. They were certainly logical. A conception of life\nso thoroughly materialist could not permit of a higher view of war;\nfor war certainly does destroy life and if it can and does promote an\nimprovement in the material conditions of life it is only as a remote\nconsequence of the class changes, and the industrial and commercial\nstimulus carried in its trail. The immediate consequences are certainly\nunsettling and paralysing to business.\n\nOn the other hand the interventionists had as the basis of their\nargument a set of platitudes the abstract ideology of which was nearly\nas objectionable as the materialism of their opponents. France,\nBelgium and England were identified with right and civilisation,\nGermany and Austria with wrong and barbarity. Therefore Italy should\nhave the honour of being among the righteous avengers of liberty and\ncivilisation against their traditional foe, barbarity. This opposition\nof two abstractions to the materialism of their opponents betrayed\nthe ideologic heirloom of the eighteenth century, so dear to the\nself-admiring minds of the educated mob. For there is such a thing as\nan educated mob and it is sure to be on the side that offers a high\nsounding rhetoric, a certain number of stock phrases and a fascinating\nideology. It is so much easier to accept ready-made ideas than to work\nthem out from actual reality.\n\nIt was not likely, however, that such claptrap should move the people\nto war. Fortunately, there was another side to the question and that\nwas the chance of getting Trento and Trieste, in whose intellectual\nlife the old spirit of the Risorgimento had kept two strongholds. All\nthat was Liberal and traditional in the Italy of the nineteenth century\nrose to the bait. The highest form of Italian Liberalism and its\naftermath Nationalism, unfurled their standard with the old zest and\ntheir followers displayed their immortal eagerness to make this last\naddition to their forerunners\u2019 building of Italy. Not only were they\nsplendid in the propaganda days, but they were the first to enlist,\nand both young Nationalists and old Liberals made it a point that \u201cno\ngentleman should stay at home.\u201d Naturally the echo they aroused was\nfar from being general. If all the Liberals and the Nationalists were\ngentlemen not all the so-called gentlemen belonged to these parties;\nthere was as much political indifference among the higher classes as\namong the lower. But it is only fair to say that the war which gave\nrise to the national and political consciousness whose first expression\nis Fascism was mainly due to the pressure and the enthusiastic campaign\nof Italian Liberalism and its offspring Nationalism.\n\nThis much being said in praise of the Nationalists, it may be remarked\nfrom the Italian point of view that the misrepresentation of the time\nand of the character of the world conflagration could not have been\ncarried much farther. It was indeed the last flare of their imported\nnotions of political reality. For nearly five centuries intellectual\ntradition had bestowed upon Italians a mentality which is historical\nnearly beyond understanding for foreigners. It will be traced back in\nanother chapter from Dante\u2019s _De Monarchia_, but it may be here taken\nfrom its first practical assertion. Machiavelli, at the end of the\nfifteenth century, acting as Chancellor and Secretary of Florence, was\nhonoured with the unlimited trust of the _Gonfaloniere a vita_ and in\nevery respect proved himself worthy of such high consideration. He was\nexceedingly grateful to the man who entrusted him with missions, the\nofficial charge of which could not have been legally bestowed upon him.\nYet, whatever his regard for the high-mindedness of his principal, from\na close study and strict observation of political facts he came to the\nconclusion that nothing could prevent the Gonfaloniere\u2019s policy from\nfailure.\n\nDino was elected _Gonfaloniere a vita_ when the son of Lorenso il\nMagnifico had to leave Florence in a hurry after having failed to\navert the transit of Charles the VIII and his troops through Florence.\nCosimo and Lorenzo dei Medici had only ruled for about half a century\nbut the changes which had taken place during that time in Tuscany and\nin the whole of Italy were so great that history shows whole centuries\nwhich have not displayed half of the difference made, for bad or good,\nby the civilisation of the time. History was indeed at a turning of\nthe road so that when Dino came in power there was as much difference\nbetween the political world anterior to the Medicean rule and his own\nas there is between the sweet and gentle art of the Beato Angelico,\nand that of Signorelli who introduced realism in his own vigorous art.\nGood Dino, however, having been chosen Gonfaloniere to bring Florence\nback to its former virtuous ways, looked to the old Republican days for\na model of government, and he failed to give his fellow citizens the\npolitical advantage that would have met their needs just as Signorelli\nwould have shown himself a failure if he had painted exactly as the\nBeato had done. Machiavelli was no optimist, but whatever the weakness\nof his conception of history due to the philosophical notions of his\ntime, he did not give himself up entirely to abusing the wickedness of\nthe people. Sure enough, they were wicked\u2014far more so than they had\nbeen before the Medicean had corrupted them\u2014yet they were above all\ndifferent and had, therefore, to be governed according to different\nideas.\n\nIt is no wonder, therefore, that the Florentine Secretary should have\nspent so many hours of his enforced leisure after the realisation of\nthe event, the inevitability of which had so long haunted him, to warn\nhis contemporaries and the posterity of the necessity of governing not\naccording to a mummified ideal, but in harmony with one\u2019s own time.\n_Bisogna riscontrarsi coi propri tempi_ and to do so he recommends the\nstatesman again and again to get direct information of that which he\ncalls _la verit\u00e0 effettuale delle cose_, that is effective or actual\ntruth in matter of politics. It is both the experimental method of\nGalileo and Vico\u2019s historical understanding of society that are alluded\nto in this constantly recurrent admonition of the man whose shrewdness\nwas to blind posterity for several centuries and throw the power and\ndepth of his political genius in the dark.\n\nIn 1915 such an excellent jurisconsult as Prof. Salandra and such a\nfirst-rate diplomat as Sonnino seemed to realise but little that such a\nprinciple existed. At best they harped on Trento and Trieste, when they\ndid not display their rhetoric on the conflict between civilisation and\nbarbarity. Still this territorial conquest, whatever its importance\nas a traditional ideal to realise, was presented above all as a\nrectification of the northern frontiers strictly necessary for the\nsafety of the nation and ethnologically justified. Nobody ever seemed\nto realise that this aim should not have been the first objective to\na nation which lacked that which is the very essence of the national\nentity, that which entitles a collectivity to have ethnological\nfrontiers, in short a national conscience and a national will.\n\nNobody seemed to realise it, but there was one man who did, and there\nwe have the second flare of genius to be credited to Mussolini. He had\nbecome gradually conscious through constant contact with the working\nclass, and the middle class as well, that they would never be fit for\npolitical life unless they acquired what they lacked through sacrifice.\nThe recent Red Week had shown him that they would not fight, that they\nmight set traps for other people\u2019s lives, but they would not face\neither blows or death for anything; and when the war came he saw that\nthere Italy had the one chance it could have to acquire what the genial\npeople who called themselves its citizens lacked to lift themselves\ninto the higher sphere where human beings are prepared to live and to\ndie for their political ideas.\n\nIt is, in fact, this national conscience, this spiritual and,\ntherefore, unlimited gift that the war has bestowed upon Italy, and\nit is only now that Carducci, the most typically civic of all Italian\npoets, could write with perfect truth:\n\n  \u201cEi dipinga il trionfo dell \u2019Italia\n  Assorta novella tra le genti.\u201d\n\nNevertheless it is not Fascist Italy, it is not the real friends of\nItaly, who will ever find fault with the ideas that brought Italy to\njoin the Allies and face the tragic ordeal of war. For it was the war,\nthe mystery of death faced by millions of her sons, which has made\nItaly a moral value, and a first-rate historical factor in the present\npolitical world. The select minority that was the brain and soul of\nthe Risorgimento has disappeared; national consciousness now fills\nthe individual consciences of the majority, and this extension of the\nnational conscience had nothing to do with the extended vote; it is a\nconsequence of the war. Personality, national personality means actual\nunity of conscience and will just as much as individual personality.\nSuch personality has effectively been born in Italy out of the ordeal\nthat meant direct or indirect sacrifice from every man and woman, for\nnobody would doubt the reality of the object for which his sacrifice\nwas made. Italy and her star were, up to 1915, a good theme for popular\nor academic literature, but when it had required blood and tears from\nevery home it became that which could easily be transformed into the\nmost awful and objective reality. Hence the religiousness of their new\nrealisation of Italy.\n\nIt loomed indeed awful, like an obscure divinity, when it called men\nwho did not quite know why they had to fight to the supreme sacrifice.\nOne has to keep in mind how little civilisation and barbarity, pompous\nwords, meant to the Italian lower class, and how little Sicilians or\nNeapolitans cared for Trento and Trieste. After Caporetto it was a\ndifferent matter. The traditional foe was on their land, and by then\nthey had realised what war meant. Therefore, one may say that their\nnational soul was tempered between Caporetto and the Armistice, and\nthat only then they became an ethical value, a spiritual entity or\nrather personality fit to play a part in the constructive history of\nthe world. The point cannot be over-stated.\n\nIt is only through the war that the spiritual reality of the country\nwas enabled to strike roots in the souls of the labourers and middle\nclass men, ceasing thereby to be the monopoly of a small intellectual\nand aristocratic minority.\n\nThe subjects of the King of Italy all became Italian citizens, and the\npeople was finally one in its full independence; it was, indeed, the\nlast act of the Risorgimento.\n\nFew foreigners, no foreigner so to speak, had in 1915 a fair idea of\nwhat was the state of mind of the Italians and still less of what\ncould be their mentality. It will not be too daring to say that in\nthis ignorance lay the cause of all the diplomatic difficulties and\nof the fallacious appreciations of what that country could give, or\nhas actually given, with the consequent mutual vexations that were to\nstrain the relations between the Allies and Italy.\n\nThe author had already, in 1915, spent two years in Italy and studied a\ngood deal; yet youth did not allow at the time more than an intuition\nof the fact\u2014the conviction of which was to be acquired by ten years\nof experience, observation and study. The Allies expected too much of\na generation whose fathers had fought the Wars of Independence with\nsheer heroism and with material means that England or France would\nhave considered hardly fit for a colonial campaign. On the other hand,\nthey overlooked the possibilities of a people who had in front of\nitself the whole of its national future, an historical mentality which\nwas likely to keep it from the sterilising conception of positivism,\nabstract idealism or materialism, once it should have reached a\nclear sense of its own secular reality, a Lacedemonian frugality,\nand finally intellectual forces not inferior to those of the Kantian\nand Hegelian Germany. The Italians for their part had to overcome a\nradical scepticism. They had a very poor opinion of what military\nachievement they could get out of their lower class, their traditional\nfinancial deficiency made them fear economic destruction almost more\nthan the life sacrifice of so many men. Munitions were a nightmare,\nrenewal of their coal and wheat stocks a puzzling problem. They had to\ntrust blindly to the Allies. In fact it is a wonder that they should\nhave overcome the sense of despondency that might have paralysed them\naltogether.\n\nThus it happened that the Italians did actually achieve far more than\nthey expected, far surpassing their own opinion of their military\nefficiency; whilst doing far less than the Allies had expected. Hence\nno end of misunderstandings. They thought that they had surprised us\nby an unsuspected revelation of force and efficiency and they ascribed\nour rather disappointed attitude to envy and fear of their new power.\nBefore the war they thought too little of themselves, because, as we\nhave said, they were still nationally unconscious, while the British\nand French governments overrated the forces that they might contribute\nwithout acknowledging their ambitions to develop the latent forces of\nwhich they were conscious. Such misunderstanding was to breed all the\ndifficulties that we knew of at the end of the war. The Italians had\nbeen victorious in war, they had triumphed over their enemies, and\nabove all over themselves, since they had asserted their reality as an\nactual political value. But they were defeated in peace, or at least\nwere on the very point of being defeated and destroyed by peace.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe several Treaties of peace, the conferences of the Allies, were\na long sequence of disappointments to the people of Italy. The\nincomprehension of the real state of things in that country reached\nsuch a degree that had Socialism in Italy been endowed with a more\nviolent vitality Bolshevism would have flourished. The propaganda of\nthe Socialist party increased daily on ground most favourably prepared\nby the general discontent and received moreover the collaboration\nof the so-called _Popolari_\u2014a kind of Social Catholic party that in\ntheory was to take the place of the clericals. Whether their leader,\nDon Sturzo, a man of remarkable power, realised the sacrilegiousness\nof using Catholic priests to pervert the minds of the peasants or not,\nthe Popolari brought their violences to such a pitch in some provinces\nthat they not only matched, they surpassed the Reds.[4] Naturally,\nthese parties and the men who were not supposed to belong to them, but\nwere flattering them in case of an eventual revolution, were wont to\nrepresent the war and the sacrifices that had been made by the country\nas the cause of all the social and economic difficulties. To them,\nthe only consequence of the war was the destruction of what had been\nlaboriously done between 1870 and 1915.\n\nIt was at this juncture that some people banded together their\naspirations, which seemed in the main to be the realisation in the\nAdriatic of all the value of what they called \u201ctheir mutilated\nvictory.\u201d They had mostly been in the trenches, and they clustered\nround Gabriele d\u2019Annunzio who led them to occupy Fiume, which was\nstill under the control of the Allies. The Allies left the whole\naffair to Italy and had the Italian government, or a strong party,\nbacked d\u2019Annunzio and his friends, the course of events would have\nbeen different. The country wanted Fiume, certainly, but with what\nwill did they want it? With a will that was national at last, because\nit was not moved exclusively by Irredentism, and did not identify\nitself with the will of the upper classes, but was a feeling with\nthe whole people. They had deserved it; they were conscious of a\nright acquired through the common trial of the whole nation. It was,\nhowever, more a velleity than a will. The new spiritual life was\nquivering, it could express itself in a puerile gesture of the hand\ntowards the object of its passion, but it could not yet express itself\nin action. Will or velleity\u2014it was certainly the first manifestation\nof a really national life striving against the paralysing scaffolding\nof its political organisation. The professional politicians had been\ntrained when politics were merely a question of technical detail, when\nto be a Deputy meant merely a job as a bargainer, to get the votes\nof the people for a party on the understanding that the party would\nsatisfy the arbitrary and personal requirements of its electors, with\nthe possibility of coming to power any day in one of the incredible\ncombinations that came to life almost daily and made the Chamber a\nnursery of ministers.\n\nOn the 28th of September, 1919, the government appointed General\nBadoglio Extraordinary Commissioner of the Venezia Guilia and accepted\na discussion on the matter in the Chamber. Neither the men in power\nnor the opposition felt it possible to accept the suggestions of the\nPress, of various associations, and even of their friends who were\nurging the necessity of Fiume\u2019s annexation. The Ministry gave in its\nresignation after dissolving the House and the elections returned 157\nSocialists, among whom were moderate men like Turati and Treves and\nmany new men whose programmes were openly revolutionary, and over a\nhundred _Popolari_. These parties had a good deal in common. Their\npropaganda had been nearly perfect and had appealed to the people by\nthat definiteness and practicalness of purpose which is the main string\nto pull in order to move Italians to action. They were not dreamers\nand even in their worst or best ideals they were for definiteness of\nmeans and purpose. There is in the Italian mind such a strong tendency\nto take a realistic view of things that to this characteristic the best\nand the worst of their history might be traced for twenty centuries.\n\nThe Nationalists had been returned in very small number, but were\nmostly young, with considerable intellectual culture, fit and ready to\nassume responsibilities. They had all done active service in the war\nand were sorry to see its meagre result. They required an audacious and\nstrong policy without being able, however, to see clearly how this was\nto be realised. Liberals held a good many seats but they were so split\nup that they should rather be considered as a set of groups than as a\nparty; they even called themselves different names and had no common\nprogramme.\n\nAfter these elections one had the impression of watching the systematic\nextinction of the flickering flame that had signalised the coming to\nlight of the new national conscience. One must have spent those years\nin Italy, have actually lived the life of the Italians, felt all their\nactual experiences and at the same time have had a good historical and\nintellectual grounding in all that concerns the country, to understand\nfully the tragedy of it. They seemed to precipitate themselves from\nthe soaring heights of national conscience to the lowest and vilest\negotism. Material well-being was again the order of the day and not\nyours or theirs or the children\u2019s, but _mine_. Beyond that nothing.\nReality was again atomistic and the atoms constitutive of it were\nabsolutely irrelatives. Nobody seemed to reflect; all were acting and\nbehaving like children. Truly it is the subjectiveness of the period\nthat must be taken as its characteristic. They seemed to move each\nin his own world. Even financially they seemed to have reached an\nunbridled licence. The constant principles that regulate economic\nrelations which form the basis of society were disregarded. Objective\nreality was ignored just as it is ignored by children and to a certain\ndegree by artists. They had the economic deficit constantly on their\nlips\u2014but never had such spendthrift way of living been displayed in\ntheir country\u2014and they seemed to overlook the moral deficit betrayed by\nsuch an atomistic subjectiveness.\n\nConsider the factories. It is evidently a high rate of production\nthat will ensure the interests of both labour and capital. Well, the\nworkmen, or women, set themselves to get higher wages as they have\ndone in most countries, but in the north and centre of Italy they\ndid it with such a childish and, therefore, savage and lawless will\nthat the works had to be shut in many instances and were not reopened\nuntil the advent of Fascism. So that it can be said that by not taking\ninto consideration the actual production as a whole, and the owner\u2019s\ninterest, they reduced their legitimate desire for a better life to the\ndestructive whims of children and ruined their own interest.\n\nThe schools reflected the same destructive state of mind. That which\nmakes the school is surely not the building; the children are not\npupils if they do not learn, and neither is the master a teacher except\ninasmuch as he does actually teach. Discipline having slackened to such\na degree that it bordered on anarchy the pupils had one fixed idea\nto do no work, and a great many of the teachers\u2014not all indeed, for\nthe teaching body has always counted in Italy a number of first-rate\nmen\u2014had the same purpose. Teaching and learning were reduced to a\nghostly shadow by the reduction of schools to a subjective purpose by\nboth parties. The professors saw in their function the title it gave\nthem to their stipend and the pupils attended school just for the\ndegree or the promotion to which such attendance entitled them.\n\nSuch a false vision of life is certainly not natural to the Italian\npeople, and it had taken a great deal of trouble to introduce it in a\ncountry the mentality of which is above all realistic. It is natural to\nthink that the Socialist and Popolari leaders were guilty of the most\ncriminal falsehoods.\n\nOn the 15th of June, 1920, when Giolitti was called upon to form a\nnew ministry, the government of Nitti had wrought such havoc in the\nfew months he had been in power that the old statesman was hailed\n_Salvatore della Patria_ on his coming to power by the very people who\nhad called him a traitor five years before. Yet the new government\nfound that the best thing to do was to let things go on as they were,\nwith the result that factories were taken possession of by workmen, and\na strong reaction took shape under the wings of the new-born Fascism,\nwhich came out with the simple programme of restoring order _even\nagainst the state_ if it was necessary.\n\nPublic opinion at the end of the year gave a clear proof of the\ndepressing influence the government had had on the national conscience\nallowing Giolitti, who had truly never been a Nationalist, to compel\nd\u2019Annunzio and his men to evacuate Fiume without any protest against\nthe bombardment inflicted upon them. When, in the next spring, the\nelections took place, all the old parties were there again with\nthe addition of Fascism. The men of the new party were mostly new\nto politics altogether, whilst some came from all the old parties\n(including the Socialist) and they had all of them taken an active\npart in the war. In the districts they had made national blocks with\nNationalists and Liberals and the few seats they obtained were not\nlost by the _Popolari_ or Socialists, who were returned in the same\nproportion as they had been in the last House.\n\nThe first characteristic of the Fascists was that they seemed to have\nthe same programme as the Nationalists, whilst they were displaying the\npower of mass organisation that had been till then the privilege of\nSocialists and _Popolari_. (This characteristic holds good up to now.)\nThey wanted to realise the political programme of the best men of Italy\nby lifting the working class up to it. As to their aim it was then\nexclusively the political and moral realisation of the practical and\nspiritual value they ascribed to the war victory. They had nothing like\nan abstract programme. When realisation is not one with conception\u2014and\nsuch has been the case for the last two centuries\u2014the political systems\nstated on paper appear all harmony, and their consequences all for the\nbest; but the trouble begins as soon as their application is sought.\n\nFascism has no ideologies but a cogent system of ideas able to give\nwhat ideologies will never give, promptitude and coherence of action.\nThese ideas serve as a criterion of action rather than a theory. If it\ndraws the attention of foreigners as a beacon light it is because it\ndoes show a way out of the abstraction that in a certain sense seems\nto have perverted our modern vision of social and economic reality.\nThe method it enforces of looking invariably at both the terms of any\none relation is practical, as only can be a method the axle of which\nis a highly philosophical conception. For the divorce between thought\nand action pronounced by the philosophy of the sixteenth, seventeenth,\nand eighteenth centuries might induce us to believe that speculative\nthoughts had nothing to do with everyday life, whereas the simplest\nand humblest action or relation to be productive has to be the direct\nand immediate expression of a thought, scientific or speculative. The\npeasant who lifts his axe over his head before striking it into the\nwood is not making a choreographic flourish with his tool; its weight\nis augmented by the height to which he lifts it and the combination of\nthe force of gravitation with his own sends his blade to the core of\nthe wood. He certainly does not think of the force of gravitation, but\nhe acts upon it. In the first contract, tacit though it may have been,\nthe man who lacked hands to plough his fields and the men who had no\nfield to plough, came into a relation that was the typical relation\nof the one and the many which has stood as the fundamental problem of\nethics and politics in the philosophy of all ages. When synthesis rules\ntheory and a synthetic view of reality rules practice then the relation\nis kept in consideration as the living bond of the two parties, and the\ngreater product of the harvest is the common aim. But when analytic\nmethods, either empirical or rational, prevail in philosophy, practical\nlife is infected with a ferocious individualism, the necessary\nconsequence of which is the unjust attribution of the harvest to one of\nthe two terms, to the ruin of the relation which has to be bilateral if\nit is to be at all.\n\nThis concrete way of looking upon every economic and social problem\ndoes not indeed present itself as a miraculous way of removing the\nclass struggles, which are, after all, one of the main forces at play\nin the civilising process of mankind. It is merely the way of looking\nat it that befits the intellectual level reached by man through the\nefforts of genius and through the blood and tears of the many by which\nsocial and economic progress is achieved.\n\nAfter all that has been said it is surely unnecessary to point out the\nabsurdity of considering Fascism as a reactionary tendency. It goes\nindeed steadily forward and its leader would not have the historical\nmind he has, if it meant to reject the labourers\u2019 claim to preserve\nthe recognition of their interests, which is the one noble conquest\nof socialism. The \u201creaction\u201d was never against the working classes\u2019\nrights; it was against all rights that did not spring from duties. It\nwas against exclusive power\u2014tyrannical as all exclusive powers are\nbound to be\u2014that it reacted with the full consent of the population, as\nsick of being bossed by a mob minority as the mob had been to be bossed\nby the gentry fifty years before. Truly it would be a strange illusion\nof the upper classes if they were to believe that Fascism had come to\nrestore \u201cthe good old times\u201d; for that which it has come to restore or\nrather to establish is the really Christian equality of men. Christian\nbecause it intends rights to be consonant with spiritual value and\nactual recognition of duties.\n\nThe revolutions of the past were always justified by the necessity of\nenforcing the claims of a single class. Fascism in its synthetic view\nof life strives to enforce the rightful claims of all classes, and\nconsiders them rightful as far as they present rights and duties on the\nsame plane. If it looks to the past it is to understand the present,\nbut its knowledge and understanding of history do not allow it to\nbelieve that history proceeds backwards.\n\n\n\n\nPart II\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS OF FASCISM\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL ANTECEDENTS\n\n\nFascism is the concrete way of considering any organisation or relation\nin the light of the aim for which it was created. Such a method sweeps\naway a good deal of claptrap rhetoric and a great many prejudices.\nWhat matters is the actual working of an organisation towards its aim,\nand not at all the exclusive interest of one of the two contracting\nparties. Obviously this is the practical application of one of the most\nfamous propositions of the philosophy of Mind. It is just as obvious\nthat after a first period of political system exclusively for gentlemen\nand by gentlemen, and a second period of a political system exclusively\ndrawn for the benefit of the lower class, it was natural that any sane\nparty should have tried a synthetic policy, above all in a country\nwhere the mentality is essentially realist.\n\nThe motto of Fascism is order and hierarchy. This is the necessary\nconsequence of its taking into consideration always the aim and its\nactual realisation. If efficiency is to be ensured to any organisation\nfrom the family upward it is evident that every member of it must play\nhis part in the way which is most likely to ensure efficiency. Yet\nthis notion of discipline is a trifle more modern than it sounds, at\nleast in Italy. Nothing can better illustrate it than the example of a\nfootball Captain and his men. The boy who acts as Captain, let us say\nJohn Smith, has no authority over his fellows, except when, ceasing to\nbe John Smith, he is Captain of the team, and while they are actually\nplaying, practising or arranging a game. His authority is not personal,\nit is actual to the sport interests of the team, or the school they\nrepresent, so that it is not demeaning to any of his team to accept\nthe dictates of his authority. Indeed the boys\u2019 commonsense is strong\nenough, in England at least, to make them realise an idea which they\nwould comprehend with great difficulty in its speculative form. To them\nit is obvious that their Captain\u2019s authority is as absolute as it is\nactual and impersonal. He is Captain as long as he is an actual value,\nas long as he is a factor of efficiency to the general play of his\nside. His authority does not diminish one whit of the players\u2019 liberty,\nbecause the will of every single player is that his side should win,\nand such identity is that which makes the actual reality both of the\nteam as an individual, or rather as a person, in the world of sport and\nof the single players as members of that team. The Captain is entrusted\nwith the co-ordination of a number of wills, and their welding into\none in his own person, so that each boy freely wants what all want.\nDivergencies are merely negative\u2014as is constantly shown by the negative\nscoring of sides in which first-rate men play without this unification\nof their single wills.\n\nThus football comes to illustrate perfectly the most difficult of all\nthe Gentilian notions instinctively acted upon by people who will\nnever be able to read one line of Gentile\u2019s works, the notion of\nliberty taken as actual identification of each single will which is\nliberty with the common will which is law. Again the boys\u2019 commonsense\nwould find it as ridiculous to argue over their Captain\u2019s orders when\nplaying, as to go on considering him as their superior when the game\nis over, or when they have detected among themselves a better Captain.\nThereby they teach the world a deep truth, that is to say that no value\ncan be considered as static, and that its realisation being dynamic and\nactual it cannot be achieved once for all, but is a continuous process\nof developing one\u2019s own efficiency.\n\nHence the notion of discipline and liberty acted upon by boys playing\nfootball results in a conception of hierarchy which is also shared by\nFascism, and is pregnant with so much social and political reformation\nthat one cannot insist too much upon it. Nor can one abstract it from\nGentile\u2019s system, of which it is theoretically and practically the\ncentre. In their organisation the boys certainly do not consider the\nteam\u2019s hierarchy as being definitely settled any more than Fascists\nwould consider any one political constitution or method of governing\nas final, that is to say as perfect. To their young minds, full of\nfreshness and elasticity, it would sound absurd not to be able to alter\ntheir arrangements and to modify their play in the best interests of\nthe team. If a boy slackens in his practice his unfitness will soon\nbetray the fact and his contribution to the positive scoring of the\nteam will be thereby diminished. But with this new view of hierarchy\nwhich Fascism takes as being grounded on actual value, the most\nunstable of all living reality thereby destroying every notion of any\npermanent class or organisation\u2014the contribution to international\npolitics of Fascism as the immediate consequence of its national and\npolitical antecedents comes to an end.\n\nPassing now to the exposition of the philosophical genealogy of Fascism\nit may be well to remember first that there are no such things as\n\u201cnational\u201d philosophies, philosophy being the historical process of\ninfinite Mind; secondly, that as a consequence of the oneness of such\na process, there are no such things as brand new conceptions either\nin the most sublime of theoretical systems or in their practical\nrealisation such as pedagogy or politics. Neither is there any such\nthing as an international system, and this ought to be sufficient\nto destroy any hope of internationalisation of mankind. Every great\nnation is a contributor to the life of Mind, and may be said to\ntake in international politics a part which is proportioned to its\ntheoretical contribution. Each school of thought takes the problems in\nthe solution of which it displays the peculiarities which distinguish\nits genius from another school, either when this has given to it all\nthe development of which its own genius was capable, or when it is\ndeveloping it on unilateral lines.\n\nIn philosophy good examples of this are the obvious derivation of\nBacon\u2019s and Descartes\u2019 problems from the Italian philosophers of the\nRenaissance, and the mutual influence of English empiricism and French\nrationalism; in politics the influence of England on France during\nthe whole of the eighteenth century and of both countries on Italy\nduring the nineteenth century. Looking at any history of philosophy or\npolitics serves to illustrate the point. For one follows the living\nprocess through which theoretical notions are born one out of the\nother, and one realises the part played by the characteristics of each\nnation in the constructive play of historical forces. There could be\nno stronger evidence both of the intellectual interdependence of\ncountries, and the absolute necessity of their political independence.\n\nThe relation of theoretical and practical life ought no longer to be\none of exclusive opposition. Pragmatism has done something towards\nthe simplification of it and the oncoming idealism is achieving it\nin a way that may be said radical. In the history of the last three\ncenturies, however, we see philosophy considering thought and action\nas the two terms of an irreducible dualism; yet such dualism must not\nbe considered a product of the perverseness of modern thought. Ovid\nhas left us a verse which settles the point even for people unfamiliar\nwith pagan philosophy. It is only the deliberate application of a given\nsystem which may follow after its conception, but the spontaneous\nconformation of political reality to the actual life of the mind is\ngenerally simultaneous with the conception of the theories of which it\nis the practical expression. A good illustration of the point can be\nhad from Germany. L\u00e9vy Bruhl has sketched the parallel development of\nGerman philosophy and national consciousness in a work which is not as\nfamous as it deserves. After Hegel\u2019s death, when his system has given\nbirth to its two political offsprings, the statolatry of Imperialism\nand the myth of Marx\u2019s Communism, the maximum force of expansion is\non the verge of being reached by Germany and the country is not far\nfrom becoming the prey of national fanaticism, which is as blinding as\nthe religious fanaticism that appears in the history of all churches\nwhen, having exhausted the force of expansion that is dependent on the\nimmediacy of their faith, they want to go on expanding artificially\nthrough arbitrary force.\n\nFew legacies of the first centuries of modern thought have been\nas harmful as the divorce between the two manifestations of human\nactivity. It was, however, inevitable. Faith in the positive teaching\nof the Church was the first snare into which early thinkers fell; for\nit is not exact to say that they professed the existence of two truths\nmerely to escape danger. They firmly believed it. Most of them were\ngood Catholics, and as sure in their scientific maturity as in the days\nof their childhood that the Church was right. On the other hand they\nwere sure of the result of their observations and experiments. They\nwere sure in both cases, and so they simply inferred the co-existence\nof two truths. Nowadays, it sounds childish and the reciprocal\nlimitation of the two truths would be obvious to any modern student,\nbut in those days the problem had not received the light that it has\nreceived since; and they were perfectly in earnest. The philosophers\nfollowed suit for two obvious reasons; science was still for a very\nlong time identified with philosophy, and the sixteenth century\nthinkers, when they were faced by the dilemma of being heretics or of\ndiscarding their passionate researches, took to considering religion as\nbelonging to the practical manifestation of mind whilst scientific and\nphilosophic researches were its theoretical activity. One more step and\nreligion was to be identified as the enemy of science.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Europe emerged from what has been called the Dark Ages of\nobscurantism\u2014in antithesis to the age of light to which belonged the\nwriters who thus labelled an epoch, which was dark and obscure to them\nmerely because they knew very little about it\u2014intellectual life was\nso full of buoyancy that men fretted at the tethers of a school of\nthought which they could disregard after having come to such efficiency\nunder its discipline that they felt like boys coming intellectually of\nage. Scholasticism having patronised Aristotle as \u201cThe Philosopher,\u201d\nPlato was for the first time opposed to him, then Neo-platonism; then\nmodern \u201cnational\u201d schools of thought arose at the breaking up of\nthe intellectual world. For a United Intellectual States of Europe\nexisted during the Middle Ages; and the biographies of St. Anselm and\nSt. Thomas tell us eloquently how, in their centuries, a man could\npass from country to country to follow his studies with the greatest\nsimplicity. At the time of St. Anselm, nationality could not be traced\nin a man\u2019s works. By the time Roger Bacon wrote the differences had\ndeveloped, and it is not impossible to find his character as a sturdy\nBriton standing out distinctly in his works. Such national tendencies\nexpressed themselves only in matters of little moment, and it is a fact\nthat the wonderful correspondence which passed between scholars kept\nthe humanism of each country in touch with that of all others; it is\nnone the less obvious that there were essential differences between the\ncharacter it gradually assumed in various countries, a character and\nan attitude that may be identified as the initial stage of the various\nEuropean mentalities.\n\nThe best proof of this is to be had in the essential and irreducible\ndifferences manifest in the conclusions to which Italian, English and\nFrench philosophy came on the very same problem, which they found on\nthe threshold of modern civilisation. Giordano Bruno, Francis Bacon\nand Ren\u00e9 Descartes treated the same question when their respective\ncountries emerged from the later Middle Ages with their respective\nschools coming to light from scholasticism through humanism. The\nproblem of knowledge faced them in this dawn of modern intellectual\nlife; and the same passionate reaction against Aristotelianism and\nscholasticism compelled their researches to take the same bent. Yet\nthey came to widely different conclusions and the differences hold\ngood even to-day as characteristic of Italian, English and French\nmentalities.\n\nBruno, whose metaphysic is wonderfully synthetic and pregnant with a\nlyricism the echo of which runs through the work of Vico, faces the\nproblem of truth, of scientific truth according to him, in order to\nfind theoretical ground to reject the authority of antiquity considered\nby his forerunners as the well of all worldly wisdom. A conception\nknown to that same antiquity but very uncommonly acted upon takes hold\nof his mind. Truly old age must be wiser than youth, but antiquity is,\ncompared to his age, the nursery age of mankind, and a fairly good\nstudent of the sixteenth century knows far more than Aristotle, because\nhe may know, if he chooses, all that Aristotle knew, and all that has\ncome afterwards to the knowledge of men. Each generation brings its\nstone to the constructive activity of man\u2019s experience. Hence the idea\nhe expressed _veritas filia temporis_. Thus he proclaims that which\nwill be the motto of every true Italian thinker; reality is essentially\nand above all, Historical Reality.\n\nIn England, Bacon, starting on the same errand, through his researches,\nwas induced also to consider more and more that the regard of man for\nthe authority of tradition is one of the greatest obstacles to the\nprogress of science, and that servile veneration for Aristotle is,\nabove all, to be condemned as paralysing the initiative of modern\nthinkers. Learning is not to be considered as the work of antiquity,\nas a work already done; it is instead an arduous task still to be\naccomplished and the first step on the way towards its accomplishment\nmust be the rejection of the old logic and its syllogism. Man must\ntrust to his personal experience, the immediate experience of his\nsenses. Nothing could be more anti-historical in its consequences than\nthis assertion, the unilateralness of which would be astonishing from\na man who felt the whole of historical and social world as a pulsing\nreality, if it was not justified by the intellectual antecedents of the\nEnglish national consciousness coming to realise its own personality\njust at the time in which Bacon thought and wrote. He could not very\nwell be expected to see the condition of his own experience in the\nexperience of his forerunners, in the age in which self-assertion\nwas the successful motto of every great man flourishing in England.\nThe abstraction thus made of all the historical past conditioning of\nman\u2019s experience was balanced for the time being by his own historical\nand political sense and by the love of life as a whole so strong in\nElizabethan days. Yet henceforth reality in the eyes of any true Briton\nwas to be _Empirical Reality_.\n\nA French thinker faces the same problem. Ren\u00e9 Descartes at first sight\nis everything that Bacon is not; whilst the English philosopher is a\nmixture of recklessness and worldly wisdom, anxious to enjoy everything\nthat power and wealth can beget, and drink to the dregs the cup of\nlife, the French metaphysician recoils from the cares of power and\nthe noisy turmoil of society. A longer consideration, specially from\na more philosophic point of view, reveals affinities that were going\nto tell on their theories. Both lack the youthful enthusiasm common\nto German and Italian thinkers, and both give shape to their theories\nwith a cautious prudence that marks them as men of the world. Their\nconclusions betray their divergencies and affinities much better than\nany analysis of their life and character could; for Descartes certitude\nis reached by way of induction when in the silence of meditation he\ncomes to his famous statement _Cogito, ergo sum_. The touchstone of\ncertitude is identified with the actual consciousness of man in the act\nof thinking. If I think surely I am; but of the rest, that is to say of\nthe knowledge of the exterior world I have no control, and traditional\nscience is communicated to me and was originally obtained through the\nsenses just as my actual objective knowledge, therefore it cannot be\naccepted as certain. Aristotle and all the traditional fetishism come\nto nought. The _tabula rasa_ is implied as definitely in this as in\nBacon\u2019s work; in both cases man must begin his work from the foundation\nand put to the test of his own experience, empirical in one case,\nrational in the other, the legacies of his predecessors. The difference\nhowever implied in the terms empirical and rational is fundamental\nand the pedagogy and politics grounded on English philosophy whilst\nlaying down rules and formulas inferred from systematic theories, will\nalways be susceptible of being tempered by a direct call to experience\nand commonsense. The rationality of French philosophy does not allow\nof such adaptation. To this day the cogency for good or bad which is\ncharacteristic of French theories is the consequence of their perfect\ndeduction from a first principle; hence the radicalness that mars\nsome of their practical application. With the exception of men greatly\ninfluenced by foreign philosophy, the French thinkers all took reality\nas being Rational Reality; and all their systems were bound to be\nradical in their applications.\n\nIn their rationalism or empiricism, France and England threw overboard\nthe past that loomed indeed rather oppressive, and in so doing they\nassert man, in his individual determination, as the ground of all\nreality. It is perfectly allowable to consider that the two schools\nwere bound to stimulate and temper each other. The atom, the monad\nat the basis of their system is always man, but at the outset the\nunilateralism of Bacon\u2019s gnoseology, a method based so to speak\nexclusively on sense knowledge, called for the mathematical and\ndeductive method of Descartes in order to display all that it held\nvirtually of scientific progress. On the other hand the French\ndeductive method, although admitting the inference and resorting\nto it in its research of first principles, stood in sore need of a\nwell-balanced recognition of the part played by sense perception in\nhuman knowledge. This will be specially obvious in the political\nconsequences of the two theories. For both had their political system,\nin which their common character prevailed, inasmuch as the seventeenth\ncentury was for France and England the century of metaphysics whilst\nthe eighteenth drew the conclusions of their premises, seeing to the\napplication or realisation of all that was fertile as a suggestion of a\nrenovating process to be undergone by society.\n\nBruno\u2019s historical reality was left in a corner, for it could not have\nbeen integrated in our system to which it was then contradictory,\nand still less in the political conditions that were to be the\noutcome of our theories, since it was consonant with them only as far\nas the individual was the basis of his reality as well as of ours.\nHis individual is, however, neither rational, nor empirical; he is\nhistorical, and this implies that he cannot be considered bereft\neither of his roots in the past nor of his projection on the future.\nNothing therein tends to diminish man; on the contrary everything\nadheres to him, dilating his personality right into infinity. But this\nnotion of man was far too difficult to be realised even theoretically\nin the sixteenth century, and the arduous task of the French and\nEnglish schools was to pave the way for the German and modern Italian\nthinkers and provide them with a starting-point to reach the heights\nfrom which the relation of the transcendental and empirical selves can\nbe detected, and the historical notion of man realised in the light\nof such a conception. In Bruno it is not, however, a mere intuition\nalthough it is realised only as far as the conception of science and\nits historical development are concerned. The practical realisation\nof this notion implied a new conception of tradition and authority,\nwhich, far from being shaken to pieces, are in it invested with a new\nand nearly sacred character. Antithetic thereby to Protestantism, it\nknocked no less against the transcendent reality of God as understood\nthen by decadent scholasticism and by most Catholics.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nHUMANISM AND RENAISSANCE SHAPING THE HISTORICAL MIND OF ITALY\n\n\nThe spirit of Humanism\u2014the veneration for antiquity which animated\nit\u2014was quite obviously different in Italy from what it was elsewhere.\nThat the difference consisted in the closer affinity of the scholars to\nthe world they studied is obvious also. No greater proof is needed than\nthe difference between the architecture of the twelfth, thirteenth and\nfourteenth centuries in Western Europe and in Italy. Art, as conceived\nby modern \u00e6sthetics, is that degree of mind, the function of which is\nneither theoretical nor practical, but consists in expressing through\nintuition the whole life of the mind. We can, therefore, rightly appeal\nto art as the most faithful witness to the spirit that animates an\nepoch. Ample documents illustrating the difference between the spirit\nof Humanism in France and in Italy can be found in the works of Emile\nM\u00e2le on the Gothic art of France, and in any illustrated book of\nItalian medi\u00e6val Art, such as the small but excellent album of Ojetti.\n\nRomanic architecture flourished in both countries between the eighth\nand twelfth centuries, and its monuments in France, such as St. Sernin\nof Toulouse, leave no doubt as to the debt of the country to its Roman\nconquerors. Even at that time, when the South of France had not yet\naltogether lost its traditions as the Roman Province, we can see new\ntendencies at work. In Italy, the contemporary buildings, pieced\ntogether with fragments of ancient columns, capitals, architraves,\nemployed as simple building material, point to the more intimate\nco-existence in Italy of the old and new elements. It is sufficient\nto recall two churches of the ninth century in Rome, St. Maria _in\nDomnica_ and St. Prassede, both following the model of the great\nConstantinian Basilicas. While their architecture is inspired by the\nclassic age of Christian art, and the materials are stolen from Pagan\nmonuments, their mosaics evince a healthy realism that asserts the\nliving tradition of local art, despite the obvious and predominant\ninfluence of the East. But this persistence of Roman influences does\nnot exclude those of the North; Carolingian art greatly influenced\nItaly, especially in certain forms of decorative work. The golden\naltar of St. Ambrogio in Milan, the canopy above it, and some of the\nstuccoes at Cividale, prove the force of these influences in districts\nethnically and historically favourable to their reception.\n\nBy the eleventh century feudal society had either lost or assimilated\nthe pre-Christian elements, legacy of the ancient world, which at first\nhad cemented together the various racial tendencies extant in Europe\nat the close of the Roman Empire, thereby preparing the way for new\nthoughts and ways of living. The Northern world had fully realised a\nnew social order, developing a new spiritual life and consequently\na new art to express it. Although this art contains numerous and\nimportant classical and Eastern elements its originality is manifest.\nWe are confronted with a new world with its own idealistic and\nnaturalistic tendencies. The boldness of the architecture, together\nwith the minute rendering of nature in the decoration testify to that\nunion of abstract speculation and close study of reality that will\ncharacterise all the subsequent developments of Northern thought. M\u00e2le\nhas clearly shown how the artists have drawn upon all the theology, the\nphilosophy and the literature of the age to express at the same time\nboth the highest spiritual and the plainest practical life.\n\nItalian architecture of the same period, following more faithfully\nthe old tradition, stands in great contrast to this originality. St.\nAmbrogio in Milan is an excellent example of this traditional growth of\nItalian art in the days that witnessed the full development of communal\nliberty. Very different from the Constantinian Basilica, even as the\nCommune was not the exact counterpart of the Roman _Municipium_, its\nheavy structure, so eloquent in its massiveness, must have appealed to\nits middle-class builders. In other Lombard churches we meet with the\nsame attempt to create a new style with classical elements. In seeking\nto harmonise traditional disposition with the new needs, they tried\nto avoid the extreme novelties of the North, too alien to the Roman\nwell-balanced and unlyrical mentality. The style of such buildings\nis present to every mind and reveals better than any description\nthe unbroken descent from Imperial Rome. Indeed, from Lombardy to\nSicily, from Venice to Genoa, various are the styles flourishing in\nthe Peninsula; yet it is easy to detect everywhere strong traces of\nsuch descent. The Baptistery of Florence is a very good instance of\nthis traditionalism and recalls faithfully that of the Lateran of the\ntime of Constantine. In entering San Miniato in Florence, where the\nfanciful details of the decoration follow and are subordinate to the\nseverely classical architecture, we almost feel on the threshold of the\nRenaissance, although still in the eleventh century. In the monuments\nof Pisa, Lucca and Pistoia we find the same classical qualities in the\narchitectural scheme, united to the more poetic fancies displayed in\nthe decoration. There is thus a conscious dependence on antiquity in\nthe main architectural features, together with the utmost readiness\nto accept foreign accessories. St. Mark\u2019s in Venice displays, even as\nthe history of the amphibious Republic, all the sumptuousness of the\nEast, but even in such an exotic scheme the architecture still relies\non Imperial Rome, which had itself absorbed many Eastern elements.\nTorcello, Trieste, Murano, show as clearly as the Lombard communes\nthe slow process of evolution that was to lead to the Renaissance.\nByzantine elements are not as alien as Gothic to Roman tradition. The\ncontemporary jurists had shown the great contribution of Byzantium to\nthe development of Roman law, and Byzantine motives were assimilated\nmore easily than those from the North.\n\nThe Roman legions had brought the great expanses of the North into\nthe orbit of history, but though they left deep and undying traces\nbehind them, they were unable to destroy the virile qualities of the\nNorthern races. So when Christianity brought a new intuition of life\nto the Western world it developed locally according to the tendencies\nof the various nations. The result was bound to be more original\nwhere men were less influenced by the old Pagan culture and further\nfrom the mentality that had produced it, among peoples who \u201c_a cultu\natque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt_.\u201d Even though their\ngrowth was to be slower in some respects, such as the cultural, such\npeoples were bound to absorb more completely the full import of the\nnew faith and thus produce a thoroughly original civilisation. It was,\ntherefore, necessary in order to glorify the new religion to produce\nan art as novel as the civilisation which inspired it. In contrast to\nthis affirmation of an entirely new mentality Italy was influenced by\nthe Roman traditions that weighed upon her; they stimulated a premature\nefflorescence that exhausted her virility for centuries. Her people\nwere not forced to elaborate afresh all the elements of life; the\nChurch had preserved for them the framework of Roman life and law. Thus\nthe energy expanded in France and in England in working out a radically\nnew society and civilisation, in Italy drifted partly into adapting the\nold formulas to the new necessities and partly into acquiring a deeper\nconsciousness of the intimate relations with the past.\n\nIn all the struggles from the twelfth to the fifteenth century with\nthe Empire and with the Church, the Italians invariably appealed to\nthe traditions of Ancient Rome; and their appeal was not to a remote\ncivilisation, but to a living tradition of their own, opposed to the\nfeudal institutions of the barbarians. At the time of the Communes this\nattitude is particularly striking. The peasantry had taken shelter from\nfeudal oppression in towns protected by the authority of a bishop,\nand there with the developments of commerce they grew in wealth and\npolitical power. We thus find a new social class, the burgher, that\ncontributed immensely to the growing importance of the cities. These\nstrong practical men were distinguished by that common sense and pride\nthat to-day distinguishes the sturdy and self-assertive Fascists.\nHaving established their institutions, they considered them a living\npart of their own persons, and brought into political life their sense\nof personal dignity and the energy of the medi\u00e6val Christian, ready to\ndie for the ideas represented by his Corporation, even as the Fascist\nis ready to die for his symbolic Black Shirt.\n\nThe Communes, in spite of their novelty, perhaps indeed in consequence\nof the novelty of their self-assertion, were responsible for one of the\nstrongest historical bonds with the past. For in their opposition to\nthe feudal rights acknowledged by medi\u00e6val law, they appealed to Roman\njurisprudence in order to prove the legal grounds of their liberties.\nThey instinctively conformed to the past, creating forms of government\nrich in future possibilities, and such conformity was not, according to\nProfessor Reggio, a mere question of high-sounding names. The Communes\nreproduced of the actual and essential features of the City-State,\nall those that could be revived. Their classicism was by no means\nartificial, it was intimately felt as the surest means of destroying\nfeudalism, at that time the most assertive form of individualism. Even\nthe present Fascist appeal to Rome is far from being mere rhetoric;\nRome is considered the one force antagonistic to that anti-historical\nmentality due to illuminism, that has given rise to abstract demagogy\nand individualism.\n\nThe burghers, backed by the recently liberated peasantry, formed the\nstrength of the Commune, and upheld the memories of Roman municipal\norganisation against the prevalently Germanic nobility. The Government\nof the Communes consisted of a college of Rectors with an Assembly\nof Elders, very much like the Senate of old, with various dependent\n_clientele_ that recall the _gentes_; the heads of the various Guilds\nwere called Consuls and took command of their men in any emergency.\nTheir defence of civic liberties was essentially the defence of freedom\nto attend to their trades and occupations. Here again they anticipated\nMussolini. What matters to the Commonweal is not the individual but\nthe interest he represents. They considered that this freedom of work\nwas incompatible with the dependence of the Commune on any superior\ntemporal authority. This was so deeply felt that the city was placed\nunder the protection of a Patron Saint, who, according to Ercole\nReggio, was not unlike the eponymous Hero of an ancient city.\n\nIn attempting to justify these forms of political and professional life\nthe citizens of the Commune came still more to consider themselves\nthe lawful descendants of the Romans. Studies of Roman Law were\npursued with as much zeal and vigour as any other form of practical or\nreligious life. As long as Pisa, Milan, Cremona, Pavia, preserved their\nmunicipal liberties their whole life was imbued with a strong sense\nof classicism which expressed itself both in the intensified study of\nRoman Law, as Professor Solmi has clearly pointed out, and in the art\nof Niccol\u00f2 Pisano. Such Roman and classical qualities were to disappear\nwhen the towns lost their municipal autonomy, only to reappear at\nthe present day in the idealism of Gentile, whose _Filosofia del\nDiritto_ is as much impressed by the seal of their realism as it\nis influenced by the thought of Hegel. They reappear in the Reform\nof the Italian Constitution, tending to substitute actual interest\nas the dynamic basis of the State in the place of the static and\nnaturalistic foundation it has had up till now. They reappear above all\nin Mussolini, who told the author he did not wish that a theoretical\nlegislation should regulate or rather paralyse the development of the\nnew corporations, but that, following the example of the Romans, he\nwished the legislation to grow out of the minutes of every single case\nsubmitted to the Corporation Court. Before they disappeared they had\npervaded all Italian life to such a degree that scholars could say\n_we_ in talking of the ancient Romans, and consider Latin as their own\nlanguage. Ricordano Malespini says that Frederick II spoke \u201c_la nostra\nlingua latina e il nostro volgare_.\u201d They had two national languages,\nLatin and the vernacular, the latter itself a degenerate offspring of\nLatin, known as the \u201c_romano rustico_,\u201d to which could be traced all\nthe various dialects in spite of their local corruptions. The Communes\nhad also a great influence on the formation of the Italian language,\nand this influence tended to unification not to differentiation,\nas many historians have taken for granted in consequence of their\npolitical individualism.\n\nFrancesco de Sanctis says that intellectual culture necessarily\nstimulates new ideas, far superior to the material necessities of man,\nand thereby calls into existence a more educated and refined class of\ncitizens, putting it in communication with foreign intellectual life.\nThe ultimate consequence is a closer connection of languages that\ndevelops not their local, but their common elements. According to him\nthe first effects of renewed Italian intellectual life were both to\nrestore the purity of Latin and favour the formation of the vernacular.\nThus we see how the classical revival started at the very moment when\nthe new Italian consciousness should have been born. This revival\nwas aided by the establishment of great international centres such as\nthe Court of Palermo at first, and later the cities of Tuscany and\nLombardy. As the studies of Latin improved, the local dialects became\npurer and more refined. The weakness of the contemporary writers for\nrhetoric, for verbosity, their exaggerated love for the mere word, to\nwhich they attributed an almost religious value, seems very often the\nna\u00efve pleasure of reasserting a family claim on a cherished property.\n\nBoth Guelphs and Ghibellines are followers of Rome, the former, as\nwe have seen, finding in Roman Law the legality of their municipal\ninstitutions, the latter appealing to the traditions of Imperial Rome\nto justify the sovereign rights of C\u00e6sar. The whole public life assumes\na religious character as in all constructive periods of history and as\nis the case in Italy to-day, where the previous lack of seriousness has\nbeen considered by the greatest thinkers to have been the product of\nreligious scepticism. At that time the object of the common veneration,\nthe one universal feeling of the most factious of peoples in the most\nfactious period of its history was the cult of Rome. And as Religion\nplayed such an immense part in their whole life, the Italians were\nobliged to christianise Rome and associate it with Christian idealism.\nFor Dante, Christ, and Rome dominate the history of a thousand years.\nHe views history as a vast moral and religious evolution, as an\nindissoluble whole, each portion of which converges irresistibly to\nits pre-ordained end. The Birth of Our Lord at the moment when C\u00e6sar\nAugustus ordained that all the world should be taxed testified to\nGod\u2019s approval of the Empire. Christ, in submitting His Godhead to\nthe judgment of a Roman magistrate, gave Divine sanction to Roman\nLaw. Dante does not consider the miraculous origin of the Seven-Hilled\nCity as the only proof of the privileges it holds from God, nor does\nhe ascribe to it the more important favour of a special historical\nprocess. Rome for Dante is equivalent to Catholicity, to conformity\nto the plans of the Divine Providence, and the history of Rome raises\nthe Roman State almost to Divine rank. Guelphs and Ghibellines find in\nthe Roman Jurists and the Roman Legions arguments in support of their\nopposite claims, and when the advent of the _Signorie_ involved them in\na common downfall, the consciousness of an unbroken descent from Rome\ncould never after be erased from Italian mentality.\n\nThe influence of Rome on all the medi\u00e6val institutions of Italy is\nobvious to anyone familiar with the period. But the Italians, at\nthe dawn of modern history, were led by this unbroken tradition of\nRome into a habit of going to Roman history and law for a solution\nof contemporary problems, and this, while it secured their supremacy\nin the field of jurisprudence, kept their mentality from developing\non original and modern lines. Even when Italy seemed almost to have\nwithdrawn from all competition in theoretical research, her jurists\nand historians stood out to proclaim the immortality of the national\ngenius. The intimate relations of the past with the present could\nnever be lost sight of by people who found in the political and legal\nactivities of ancient Rome the principles from which arose their chief\npolitical idea, the dignity of man as a citizen. They overlooked the\nfact that such wonderful citizenship had never been bestowed on man as\nman, that the municipal liberties, the privileges of the _Collegia_,\nthe rule over the barbarians, were the reward of the Romans, not the\npre-ordained lot of Rome. Italian scholars felt with the deepest\nconviction that her genealogy alone endowed Italy with a primacy which\nthey could not renounce. Even had they so wished they could not have\nbeen a modern nation in a modern world. The more they studied, the more\ndid they convince themselves like Petrarch that they descended in an\nunbroken line from Marius and Sulla. Their historical mentality was\nalready formed and they could not consider the human world otherwise\nthan as a narrow collaboration of successive generations.\n\nDante, in his preface to the _De Monarchia_, has stated his idea of\nthis historical succession. \u201cAll men whom a loftier nature leads to\nthe love of truth seem to be most greatly concerned to hand down to\nposterity the fruits of their efforts so that, even as they themselves\nhave been enriched by the labours of their ancestors, they may to\nthe same degree endow their successors. Indeed, he who is steeped in\nthe knowledge of public affairs is certainly far from fulfilling his\nduty should he not trouble to bestow the fruit of his studies on the\nRepublic, not like unto \u2018a tree by the rivers of water that bringeth\nforth his fruit in his season,\u2019 but rather unto a baneful whirlpool\nthat swalloweth up all things nor ever restoreth what it hath once\nswallowed.\u201d Here we find the empirical expression of what Giordano\nBruno was to conceive theoretically three hundred years later, thus\nforeshadowing the Immanentist doctrine of history and society that\nVico was to develop some hundred and fifty years later still. Vico\nhad, in his turn, to wait until the second half of the nineteenth\ncentury in order to be properly understood. His ideas in 1916 formed\nthe basis of Giovanni Gentile\u2019s Philosophy of Law, and at the present\nday are realised in the Italian Constitution as elaborated by the\nGovernment of Mussolini. But Dante\u2019s scholastic training could not\nallow him to have the least inkling of the doctrine of Immanentism;\nhis ideal Monarch is merely a magistrate appointed and endowed by God.\nFor Dante all political power could only be lawfully derived from\nthe Divine law. Scholastic philosophy could not conceive a law that\nshould not be dependent upon a superior will or a pre-existing law.\nNone the less, this empirical statement, such as it is, shows already\nhow no speculation could satisfy the Italian mind unless it avoided\nthe unhistorical position more natural in those countries that had\nthemselves evolved an original form of society.\n\nThe removal of the Papal court to Avignon gave Italy a rude shock in\naffecting the good fame of the whole country. The humiliation of the\nPapacy is resented all over the Peninsula, and the eclipse of the\nPapal dignity diminishes the prestige not only of Rome but of Italy.\nA new religion, the cult of Rome, spreads in all Italian hearts, and\nits ruined monuments are scarcely less venerated than the relics of\nthe Apostles. The glorious memories of the Roman Republic, the pride\nof the Roman name, give rise both to the unfortunate statesmanship\nof Arnold of Brescia and, a hundred and fifty years later, to the\nrash adventure of Cola di Rienzo. All those who cannot boast such\nan illustrious descent are contemptuously designated as barbarians,\nand this distinction gives rise to the feeling of the unity of the\nItalian races. The mystical and religious fervour with which the men\nof the Risorgimento felt for Rome, so strong that it led them to\ntrample on their religion, was not stronger than that of the first\nhumanists. Petrarch and Boccaccio were already preparing the way for\nthe Renaissance, of which they are rightly considered as the first\npioneers. These enthusiasts, who brought such inestimable benefits to\nthe intellectual life of the whole world, nevertheless introduced into\ntheir own country the germ of many ills.\n\nThe men of France and England could never feel at home in the ample\nfolds of Cicero\u2019s toga as the Italians did. It was for them, indeed, a\nuseful garment worn with perfect ease of manners as a ceremonial robe\ndonned on state occasions, or a protective covering unfurled in their\nintellectual battles. Despite its assimilation and survival as late as\nthe eighteenth century in the ample periods of Dr. Johnson or in the\nwell-balanced sentences of Bossuet, it did not modify to any degree the\nmentality of countries with which it did not have a close affinity,\nalthough it left in the minds a certain number of ideas distinctly\npagan, such as that of birthright. French and English scholars looked\nupon Rome as something definitely outside their own world, like the\nmoon or the sun, and just as illuminating to them as the former is\nto the night wanderer and the latter to all the labours of mankind.\nThis transcendental quality rendered Rome indeed semi-divine in\ntheir eyes, but fortunately kept them from considering themselves\nthe lineal progeny of Marius or C\u00e6sar. Their cult of antiquity was\njust as profoundly religious as that of the Italian scholars with\nwhom they were often in the closest relations, only their attitude\nwas more detached. They were thus able to cut themselves adrift from\ntheir masters with perfect ease when they had assimilated all that was\nneedful to develop their own natural gifts. An abyss stood between them\nand antiquity; they were unable to appreciate their real connection\nwith antiquity. Their historical information as to the intervening\ncenturies could only be drawn from medi\u00e6val chronicles which, full of\ndetail though they were, did not offer any comprehensive view even\nof a reign and much less of a century. They failed to understand the\nessential continuity of the history of all countries, and, while not\nmaking the mistake of considering the Romans as their ancestors, they\ncould not conceive history and society as immanent in man.\n\nPetrarch, on the contrary, considers himself perfectly Roman, although\nhis lyrics are almost the first assertion of modern individualism.\nHis familiarity with Livy, Cicero, Virgil, gave him an appreciation\nof classical Latin that led him to consider that of Dante barbarous.\nWhat matters to him is the form in which thoughts are expressed, not\nthe thoughts themselves; he wanted art for art\u2019s sake. Fortunately,\nhis genius and the fervour of his cult for Rome sometimes animates his\nconsciousness of the continuity of the past with the present. In the\n_Canzone di Signori d\u2019Italia_ the new Italy that was trying to recover\nher Roman and Latin tradition appears as a fully grown personality.\nGuelphs and Ghibellines, Romans and Florentines have disappeared,\nand Italy speaks the proud language of the Queen of Civilisation. As\nFrancesco De Sanctis puts it, the poet is an Italian, conscious of the\nsuperiority of his race. Marius is mentioned as if he were an almost\ncontemporary person. So deeply does the young poet feel the classical\nworld that henceforth he considers the heroes of Greece and Rome as\nhis ancestors. With personal pride he assumes the military glories of\nMarius and C\u00e6sar no less than the ample rhetoric of Cicero. And in this\nassumption of a ready-made glory as Italy\u2019s inherent right, cause of\nmuch subsequent political and moral weakness, we may find the first\nsigns of the contribution that modern Italy is perhaps now on the verge\nof bringing to civilisation. It is therefore natural that Fascism\nshould attack with energy the negative side of the legacy of Humanism,\nthe Italian fondness for rhetoric, union of lofty words and mean deeds,\nwhile accepting and proclaiming the historical conception that links\nman to the generations past and future.\n\nThe Italians of the fifteenth century continued to revel in the glory\nof Rome and gradually forgot that there was an actual and living\nreality, hardly consistent with their superior attitude as the sons\nof C\u00e6sar and Augustus. Prose and verse improved so long as the cult\nof antiquity retained its initial mystic fervour, that provided the\nreligious element indispensable to all creative art. But when devotion\nto classical studies became a question of interest or vanity, it was\nonly from the very greatest artists, from men whose real religion was\nthe worship of art, that one could expect sincerity. All the others\nwere only extraordinarily adept at the clever wording of other people\u2019s\nideas. They could never fail to deck any subject, no matter how mean,\nno matter how repulsive, in the full pomp of a Ciceronian oration, rich\nin beautiful sentences and displaying the careful study of all the\nfigures of speech to be found in the classics. Fraccastorius describes\na loathsome disease in the finest of post-classical hexameters.\nPoliticians could act as meanly as they pleased, sure that the glory\nof Rome would raise them above the rest of mankind. Even their real\nsuperiority in historical feeling and in the interpretation of\nantiquity was a source of weakness. For when beaten in war they could\nalways express contempt for the victors and call them barbarians,\nconsoling themselves with their real intellectual and artistic\nsuperiority for their political humiliation.\n\nIn 1494 Charles VIII of France invaded Italy, meeting with no\nresistance worth mentioning. It is not surprising, since the despairing\ncry of Boiardo\n\n  _\u201cMentre che io canto, O Dio Redentore.\n  Vedo l\u2019Italia tutta a fiamma e a foco\u201d_\n\nis almost the swan-song of medi\u00e6val Italy. At the same time a\ntwenty-year-old youth, destined to become the greatest poet of the age,\nLodovico Ariosto, could sing with perfect Horatian art and with an\nequally perfect indifference for his country\n\n                    _\u201casperi\n  furore militis tremendo\n  Turribus ausoniis ruinam\u201d_\n\nand with all the selfishness of unconscious indifference\n\n  _\u201cRursus quid hostis prospiciat sibi\n  Me nulla tangat cura, sub arbuto\n  Iacentem aquae ad murmur cadentis.\u201d_\n\nHe has adopted the measures and harmonies of Horace and Virgil and,\nwrapped up in his pride in the glory of Rome, goes on singing his\nclassical bucolic loves in complete indifference to the fate of his\ncountry:\n\n  _\u201cEst mea nunc Glycerae, mea nunc est cura Lycoris,\n  Lyda modo meus est, est modo Phyllis amor.\u201d_\n\nReality is a horrible dream, \u201c_improba seclis conditio!_\u201d he is shocked\nthat\n\n  _\u201cnuper ab occiduis illatum gentibus, olim\n  pressa quibus nostro colla fuere iugo.\u201d_\n\nSuch a perfect Latinist could but seek to dismiss this hideous reality\nby ignoring it and to find refuge in the glorious memories of the past\nor in the creation of a world of fanciful chivalry.[5]\n\nThe sixteenth century witnesses the final divorce of Italian culture\nfrom real life, so that for two subsequent centuries, instead of\ndeveloping the moral and social qualities of the individual citizen, as\nin England, in France and in the Netherlands, it tended rather to the\natrophy of all real patriotism. But at this very moment, in opposition\nto this dissolving and negative influence of Italian Humanism, one of\nthe greatest men produced by a land ever \u201c_magna parens virum_\u201d stands\nforth to proclaim that man alone is the creator of the historical world\nand arbiter of his own destiny. The public life and the posthumous fame\nof the Florentine Secretary are equally unfortunate, but the present\nage is better prepared to appreciate the truths contained in the works\nof Niccol\u00f2 Machiavelli.\n\nHe, like all the intellectuals of the period, would have said \u201c_we_\u201d in\nspeaking of the Romans, and he might have used the phrase of Leonardo\nAretino, \u201c_Graecos \u03a0\u039f\u039b\u0399\u03a3, NOSTROS CIVITAS appellavisse_,\u201d had he\ndesired to trace the etymology of that political reality so dear to\nhis heart. But this identification was not sentimental; he analyses\nclosely the differences between past glory and present shame. Strictly\nspeaking, he is not a Humanist at all; like Galileo, he repudiates\nNeoplatonism and follows, rather, the experimental method. He carefully\ndissects the past for the benefit of the present, and deftly probes the\nwounds of the body politic. This empirical standpoint indeed would be\na grave defect, did not his genius and sense of history as a living\nreality often lead him to intuitions that transcend both his method and\noutlook. The intuitions, the proof of the truth of which was to be one\nof the chief conquests of modern thought, are clouded by his prejudices\nor obscured by the inevitable limitations of his knowledge of facts.\nHis conception of \u201cvirtue\u201d is perhaps the most characteristic of those\nintuitions that allowed him to foresee ideas only to be understood\nby the end of the nineteenth century, and only to be acted on by the\npresent day.\n\nOf course, the idea in itself was not entirely new. One of the ablest\nhistorians of the fifteenth century, Philippe Monnier, has clearly\npointed out that already in the twelfth century the centre of reality\nhad been lowered from the celestial heights and firmly planted in the\nbreast of man. The polemics on Frederick II\u2019s definition of nobility\nare an assertion of the part played by man\u2019s individuality in the\nformation of the world. After two centuries of Humanism, noble birth\nis an absurdity. For Piccolomini, Ficino, Landino, man cannot be born\nnoble, he can only become noble through his own exertions. The Stoic\nprecept of the absolute autonomy of the human will is frequently\nalluded to in discussion on the power of Fortune, against which Leone\nBattista Alberti strenuously asserts the power of man to forge his own\ndestiny. Alberti, typical representative of the Renaissance, in all his\nmoral works, emphasises the freedom of man from all external influences\nand above all from the dominion of Chance, and for him man\u2019s life is a\nconsequence of man\u2019s actions. Neither Fate nor Chance are a cause of\nthe varying circumstances of individuals.\n\nHaving these doctrines before him, Machiavelli was able to apply to the\nlife of nations the ideas that governed the life of the individual.\nRome had been powerful and glorious; Italy is weak and contemptible:\nthe cause is the moral corruption of the Italians. Machiavelli does not\nalways consider Italy\u2019s invaders as barbarians; he is always ready to\nstudy their institutions and ways of living in order to discover the\nreasons for their military superiority. He firmly believes that Fortune\ncan only display her power where no \u201cvirtue\u201d has prepared a resistance.\nItaly, \u201c_vituperio del mondo_,\u201d will certainly return to her former\nstrength could the Italians be aroused from their torpor. His attitude\nis identical with that of Mussolini\u2019s government: Italy is slighted\nby the Allies, she is financially weak, the cause is the scepticism\nand self-indulgence of the people, the remedy a stricter conception of\nlife for adults and a more religious education for children. Fortune,\nhowever, is not quite identified with Fate, and, while the latter is\nunhesitatingly rejected, the former is retained as a kind of background\nagainst which man can display more efficiently his will and \u201cvirtue.\u201d\nThis background, which he calls Fortune or Opportunity, is no less a\nconception than Croce\u2019s \u201csituation of facts.\u201d His \u201cverit\u00e0 effettuale\ndelle cose\u201d is the objective knowledge of the Crocian \u201csituazione\nde fatto\u201d and must be ascertained anew before embarking on any new\naction, for, according to the shrewd Florentine, \u201csono le cose umane\nsempre in moto.\u201d It is, therefore, necessary to take one\u2019s bearings\nbefore embarking on any course to realise one\u2019s will. The best type of\nwill is that which draws its strength from an intimate knowledge of\nactual circumstances and is consequently steady and resolute. Hence\nthe profound morality of such will-power, pursuing its end without\nhesitation or incertitude, disdainful of half measures, its moral value\nimmanent in the very act of volition.\n\nIt is no longer possible to continue to identify Machiavelli with\nimmorality or amorality, now that his doctrines have been profoundly\nanalysed by philosophers, jurists, and critics of the value of Ercole,\nCroce or Gentile. We only find in his works a transposition of the\nfundamental principles of ethics. What he calls \u201cvirtue\u201d is not to be\nunderstood in its Christian sense. It is closely allied to efficiency\nbut is an efficiency displayed in the accomplishment of the common\ngood, in the realisation of a strong State. Hunger and necessity can\nrender men industrious but only wise laws can make them good. Indeed\nthe laws bring people to realise the necessity of justice; social\nintercourse gives rise to all the various conditions of life, including\neducation, religion, habit, law, and ultimately to the standard of\ngoodness. As Gentile points out, for Machiavelli as for Spinoza the\ncommon good is a product of society; the distinction between good and\nevil presupposes society, that is to say a system of laws. Hence the\nsaying put into the mouth of Rinaldo degli Albizzi: \u201cNo good man will\never find fault with anyone trying to defend his country, whatever the\nmeans he may employ.\u201d In commenting upon this passage Gentile rightly\nsays that those who extend the common good from the country to the\nwhole of mankind do not expand but rather restrict the meaning of the\nwriter. Machiavelli by \u201cPatria\u201d understands the entirety of social and\ncivilised life, that is to say that the State is the only historical\nand concrete form of mankind. He is fundamentally opposed to any\nindefinite, unsubstantial idea of man that would strip him of all the\nhistorical influences that determine his social and political life, and\nthat would make of mankind a shadowy abstraction. Such ideologies could\nmean nothing to the sixteenth century Florentine, but they do not mean\nmuch more to the modern Italian, and this is the reason why Socialism\nin Italy never developed its nobler side. Men who, like Andrea Costa,\nwere real idealists of the Marxian school were devoid of any influence,\ndespite the respect due to their high standard of personal life. If the\nwhole of mankind is to be the object of the duties of every individual,\none might as well abolish those duties; what is the business of\neverybody is the business of nobody. Therefore, Italian Socialism was\nobliged to adopt not the high, if impractical, ideals of Northern\nSocialism, but an entirely materialistic form of propaganda, harping\nconstantly on higher wages and shorter hours, in order to arouse the\ninterest and secure the support of the masses.\n\nMachiavelli was obviously too much a man of his age to be able to\nsurpass the theory of man as an individual attempting to realise his\npersonality in a world in which he could expand as freely as possible.\nHe could not conceive the objectivity and consequent importance of the\nState as moral reality, and still less the intimate subjectivity of the\nobjective world in which man realises his will. The very word \u201cFortune\u201d\nkept to indicate actuality was misleading, and veiled his real notion\nof freedom; he severed liberty from law and by only retaining the\nformer he gave the careless or ignorant an opportunity for the vulgar\ninterpretation of his doctrines.\n\nTime and the works of Bruno and Campanella, stripped of their heretical\noutlook, were to further in the mind of Vico the first maturity of the\nfruits of which the seed was to be found in the Florentine statesman\u2019s\nideas of \u201cvirtue\u201d and political morality. Thus, while the other\nmodern nations were necessarily getting more deeply embogged in their\nanti-historical attitude towards life, Italy, in the political idleness\nof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was slowly elaborating\nthose doctrines that may yet prove to be the ballast needed by all\ncountries to weather the present political and social storms.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN ENGLAND AND ITALY\n\n\nThe contribution of England to the history of the world during the\nseventeenth century is so considerable that the very attempt to sketch\nit is almost an impertinence. It cannot be reduced into schematic\nlines, for there never was a richer synthesis of life. Never have\nreligion, art, and philosophy pervaded the whole life of a people as\nthey did in England at the end of the sixteenth and during all the\nseventeenth century. Very highly refined periods do not produce great\narts and it must be said that with very few exceptions the creative\ngenerations are bound to be rather trivial. Strong minds, deep\nreligious feelings, the virile consciousness of personal efficiency,\ndo not make for tolerance and refinement in practical life; but they\nyield a philosophical, an artistic, a political harvest on which their\nprogeny continue to live for centuries, elaborating and refining\nuntil tolerance is the order of the day in philosophical, religious\nand political matters, whilst dilettantism and criticism flourish,\npreparing the way for new generations of creative men.\n\nThe philosophy of Bacon was essentially oriented towards the world\nexterior to man, but it had already taken to consider moral and\nespecially political life in the light of natural causes. The\ndivine origin of the king\u2019s majesty was in due time to be denied in\nconsequence of such a view, although Bacon little suspected the fact\nand was ready to uphold such divine origin with all the force of his\ngenius. Another consequence was to be the consideration of human\nsociety ruled by the same laws that rule the mechanism of nature, and\nthis was certainly pregnant with political revolutions. The systematic\nempiricism so characteristic of English politics need not be traced\nfarther back. Yet before coming to the political conception of Hobbes,\nwho was the first great follower of Bacon and one of the first great\npolitical thinkers of England, the contribution of Grotius must be\nconsidered as Hobbes has a good deal in common with him.\n\nHugo Grotius was born 1583, twenty-two years after Bacon and five\nyears before Hobbes. Like Bacon this Dutchman was a statesman and an\nambassador. The practice of business had therefore a great influence\non his ideas and was apt to temper the excess of doctrine of the man.\nHis idea of natural law is a heritage both of Pagan times and of\nScholasticism, and based both on the distinction established by the\nRoman jurists, between the _jus civile_ and _jus naturale_, and on the\nmedi\u00e6val notion of _sociability_, a special sense of which he supposes\nman to be endowed by Nature. The way such a notion is applied is, on\nthe contrary, due to the more modern theory of Nature; and there we\nmeet with an assertion that would have roused Machiavelli from his\ngrave if he had heard it, and that undoubtedly has given origin to the\nnegative understanding of history against which Idealism and Fascism\nare reacting with all their forces.\n\nAccording to Grotius such _jus naturale_\u2014the only branch of legal\nstudies that can be treated is philosophy\u2014is based on the essence of\nthe nature of men. But such nature is the same all over the world\njust as Nature is. It will be the same for ever in spite of historical\noscillations just as Nature will. The presupposition of this nature\nof man, postulated out of and against every experience, is a negation\nof history as the process of the gradual development of mankind. Yet\nunquestionably its introduction in modern politics was the cause of a\ngreat progress towards justice, and in Grotius himself it is balanced\nby his insistence on not taking positive law out of history. The\nlack of good metaphysical ground brought him to the postulation of\nan unhistorical reality whilst the recent improvement of historical\nresearches at the hands of Jean Bodin and others induced him not to\nconsider positive laws except in the light of history. To be fair, this\ninstinct of society deeply inset in the nature of man was not of his\nown invention. It is to be found in Aristotle. It is to be found in\nSt. Thomas. But then the instinct compelling man to live in community\nis understood in a very different way by the Greek philosopher, by\nthe great Scholastic doctor and by the Dutch statesman. For if it is\ntrue that historical facts which are political, artistic, military,\nreceive their definite character from the ideas of the generation\nthat achieved them, it is equally true that the meaning attached to\ntraditional ideas by any one man is to a certain extent modified by the\nwhole life of his generation. So that Aristotle understands by Nature\nthe transcendental power which planned the life of man as a part of its\nuniversal scheme; Thomas Aquinas sees in the nature of man that which\nwas determined as characteristic of mankind by the Divine will; whilst\nGrotius sees in this sense of society something very much like the law\nof gravitation\u2014not quite, however, since in him we see looming out\nalready the ghost of man anterior to society, of whom nobody ever heard\nanything and which is, therefore, a pure conjecture. Considering this\nnature of mankind as his basis, it was inevitable that Grotius should\nthink the best constitution of the state to be one the origin of which\nmade it more likely to meet the requirements of such nature. Once the\nfiliation of law as the product of this nature of man was established,\nprivate and public law obviously derived from the _jus naturale_, and\nthe state must originate from an agreement of its components.\n\nIf Grotius had been able to realise theoretically the immanence of\nthe _jus naturale_ in society he would have foreshadowed all the\npolitical theories of the eighteenth century, and worked out his scheme\nwith far more cogency than the men who came after him. As it is, the\nrationality immanent to human society is too difficult for him and his\ntime, and unable to realise the moral will of the collectivity he is\nthrown back with Machiavelli on a very empirical notion of liberty.\nThe subjectivism of Grotius is the subjectivism of the philosophy of\nhis time alternatively empirical and rational, so that the contract by\nwhich men give themselves a form of government is irrevocable: they\nare free to assume it, not to reject it. Obviously the souvenir of the\nReformation with its political struggles must have been quite fresh in\nthe mind of his contemporaries and influenced him, as the Revolution\nof England was to influence Hobbes; otherwise it would be difficult to\nunderstand how men could be considered as free to choose a constitution\nand not to discard it. The contradiction was too patent not to be\nnoticed, but there again the philosophy of Bacon and his followers\ninfluenced too much the thought of the whole century to allow any\nresolution of the difficult problem. It was the nature of man that led\nmankind to form communities, and the mechanicalness of this conception\nwas so much a consequence of the mechanism of the philosophy of the\ntime that once such communities had come to a contract entrusting their\ngovernment to one man or a body of men, the government itself was\nconceived of as mechanical as Nature, and its laws as irrevocable as\nnatural law. The contradiction inherent in the twofold notion of man\u2019s\nnature, held by men like Grotius, led them to deny the liberty of man\nwhich was the ground of their theory.\n\nHobbes has a metaphysic so clear, so well determined, that his\npolitical conception is bound to have that cogency which belongs\nexclusively to the works of men whose philosophical grounds are\ntheoretically first rate. That Cromwell should have offered him a high\noffice in his government is not surprising. Obviously the mind and\ncharacter of Hobbes are for prompt decisions and coherency of action.\nYet his political theories are not fit for actual application. It is\nnot impossible that his ideas should have influenced the political\nmen of his days; but his _Leviathan_ is the conception of a man to\nwhom philosophy was _doctrina corporum_. Bodies can be natural or\nartificial, and the state is the most important of all the artificial\nbodies, man being both a natural body, the most perfect natural body,\nand an element of the state, the most perfect of all artificial bodies.\nPsychology is bound to occupy the foreground in his anthropology,\nand no philosopher ever laid a greater emphasis on the distinction\nbetween theory and practice. Thought is considered after the Cartesian\ndoctrine as relatively free, and will as dependent upon thought; the\nsuperiority of the former is acknowledged indeed by all the thinkers of\nthe time and of the following century. In psychology the consequence\nof this distinction is a conception of the volitive activity that\nforeshadows the more modern theories of determinism, against which\nall idealisms have fought their most strenuous battles and Fascism is\nactually leading a political crusade. For Hobbes asserts the necessity\nof surpassing the state of Nature, in which all men are free, by the\nsacrifice of some liberties and by the sacred preservation of the\nengagements of the contract. But on what ground can he require such\nsacrifice and faithfulness, except that of self-preservation? Thus\nselfishness is at the basis of the edifice and there looms already the\ncapital sin of the more modern conception of Liberalism. The state is\nconceived as the algebraical sum of the citizens, the selfishness of\nwhose life is guaranteed by the legislature.\n\nBut Hobbes was English and, despite the influence of French\nRationalism, his logic was not so imperious as to prevent his views on\nactual life from taking the upper hand in some important parts of his\nsystem. Such an artificial agglomeration of political atoms, understood\nas it was to be the most realistic and naturalistic view of political\nlife, could not have stood the test of application; and Hobbes is\ncarried away by his own notion of the contract into a theoretical view\nof it which is distinctly superior in moral truth, and much nearer to\nhistorical truth. When men come to an agreement for the defence of the\npeaceful life of each of them the state comes into being; but it is not\na temporary, mechanical agglomeration\u2014it is unity wanted by men. In his\nnatural state man enjoys some kind of security based on the _concordia\nmultorum_, but this concord is not sufficient to ensure peace, it is\nmerely enough for animals. To ensure human peace something more than\ncommon consent is needed.\n\nUnion, the union of citizens becomes something superior to the sum of\ntheir particular selfishnesses. Hobbes realises that such union is\na living reality and even if he does not work out the way by which\nthe notion of the state as a person can be reached, he none the\nless joins hands with all political idealism. In the middle of the\nseventeenth century he had an intuition of the conception upon which\nthe Nationalism of all countries was to live and act; whilst Hegel\nwas to work it out in an abstract theory and Italian Idealism to\nmake it a reality by its good fortune in having met with a political\nmovement able to realise this most historical of all the philosophical\nconceptions of the state. Hobbes had had enough political experience to\nrealise intuitively that which his natural mechanism did not allow him\nto conceive on theoretical grounds.\n\nSuch a happy intuition does not, however, take him any farther.\nHis state has nothing of a moral reality, and the union of the\ncitizens which it implies falls back on the ground of the law of\nself-preservation. The fact is that the state so conceived by Hobbes\nwas an abstraction despite the happy intuition of the oneness of will\nimplied in the contract; and his natural man another abstraction not\nto be met with anywhere. The identification of man and state only\nhappens in history and there it was to remain, unlooked for in England\nuntil Hume, whilst in Italy Vico was to herald the reality of society\nand history as the creation of man between 1720 and 1730. Thus, like\nGrotius, Hobbes ended by denying the freedom of will that the very\npossibility of the contract had implied. His ideal state, his empirical\nstate, his natural state, are so conceived that they continually oppose\neach other or are identified one with the other in his theory.\n\nThe state is therein as mysterious as Nature, and its laws are no\nless imperious than the laws of Nature, calling as they do merely for\npassive obedience, and at least in Hobbes\u2019 theory the state is no less\neternal than Nature, for after the contract the less the citizens have\nto say in the matter the better. Yet Hobbes was an Englishman and the\nfact was to tell; even in this most abstract theory he cannot lose\nsight of the realm of experience. And if the ruler was a bad one? Like\nall his countrymen the father of the _Leviathan_ is ready to trip up\nhis logic rather than to offer a scheme which after all might not\nwork. If the ruler proved an inefficient or bad one the citizens could\ndiscard him.\n\nIn his opposition to the kingdom by the grace of God the father of the\n_Leviathan_ is led by his methodical Naturalism\u2014and not at all by a\nrepugnance for any form of tyranny. The social contract is a purely\nhuman affair and nothing could be so ridiculous as the grounding of\nso human a reality as the authority of the state upon an act of the\ngrace of God. But the more absolute is this authority the better; and\nhis indifference as to the choice of the state-religion did not make\nfor tolerance. Not to think of Cromwell when one studies Hobbes is\nimpossible; for the philosopher in front of Nature, his almighty though\nmechanical Nature, is just a fanatic observer as intolerant as Cromwell\nand as energetic in the systematic application of his philosophical\nfaith. Only men of faith can alter the historical world, for religion\nremains one of the greatest factors in men\u2019s life, although it does\nnot always appear under the cloak of a definite church. In such cases,\nhowever, it is often apt to be more intolerant and certainly more\ndangerous\u2014as all abstract dogmas are bound to be\u2014than those which have\nthrough their historical organisation received some kind of adaptation\nto the society in which they flourish. Cromwell was intolerant, was a\nfanatic, but no more and even perhaps less essentially so than Hobbes,\nand both are a perfect embodiment of the genius of England during the\nfirst half of the seventeenth century. Never has the life of a country\nexpressed itself more fittingly in its theoretical and practical term.\nHobbes like a bee had gathered after Bacon the best of Italy, and the\necho of Campanella is to be detected in the most characteristic part\nof his theory of knowledge; he had, besides, imported the result of\nthe most recent scientific works of the French and Dutch thinkers.\nEngland could prepare on his intellectual contribution to put forth the\ngenius of Locke just as it could on the assumption to political life of\nnew elements make ready for the organisation of the state that under\nWilliam of Orange was to arouse the envy of the world.\n\nThe two fanatics, one in the immediateness of his faith in the\nrighteousness of God, the other in the elaboration of his faith in\nNature, had done a great deal in the way of shaping the character\nof modern England, and the theory of one and the revelation of the\nother held in germ much that meant progress for the whole of mankind.\nBut both by their superlative intolerance and despotism called for\nthe reaction that was to oppose most formally man to the state. For\nHobbes at least the fact was inevitable, his _Leviathan_ engulfs all\nrights and interests; at the same time in his theory of knowledge\nhe picks up the trend of Campanella and sets the basis for a nearly\nProtagorean subjectivism. How far the theory of the _Leviathan_ was\nfrom Italian mentality cannot be judged from contemporary opinion.\nThe Italians, or at least the greatest number of Italy\u2019s scholars,\nwere giving themselves up to academical or to immoral pastimes. The\nCinquecento had been personified by Ariosto, Machiavelli, Aretino, the\nthree expressions of the Italian society during the sixteenth century.\nThe characteristics of the times had been an artistic fancy, full of\nserenity, aware of its being a mere play of imagination and making fun\nof itself; an adult thought that swept away the illusions of fancy\nand feeling, to make its own way towards the shrine of science, at\nthe very core of what is the world of Man and Nature; then a moral\nlicentiousness, remorseless because unconscious, therefore shameless\nand cynical. Ariosto\u2019s fancy is displayed to such an extent that it\nmostly aroused mere irony from his contemporaries. Machiavelli brings\nrealism and logic to their ultimate consequence, arousing thereby\na sense of repulsion in men far more wicked than he was. Aretino\u2019s\ncynicism reaches such a monstrous pitch that the most dissolute men\nturn away sickly from his books.\n\nThat was the era in which the great nations of Europe were taking\ntheir definitive personal physiognomy. (England, as has been said,\nhad already the features that were going to be the family likeness\nto be reproduced all over the Anglo-Saxon world by her sons.) As De\nSanctis points out, the European races were building up the \u201cPatria\u201d\nso fondly dreamed by Machiavelli for his own people, a \u201cPatria\u201d which\nwas to be a political unity, fortified and cemented by religious,\nmoral, and cultural elements. At this same time Italy not only failed\nto build up a \u201cPatria,\u201d but was losing her independence, her liberty,\nand her beloved and treasured pre-eminence in the historical world.\nNot that such a catastrophe was realised except by the keen mind of\nMachiavelli. It was unconscious, it was bound to be unconscious, since\nit happened just because national consciousness had vanished. How\ncould it have assumed national shape? The name of Italy was to become\na geographical expression, for its inhabitants were not citizens,\nthey were mere inhabitants, subjects by natural determination of this\nor that petty Prince. The geographical name of a region becomes the\nname of a nation through the very long or extremely short process of\nformation of national consciousness that permits of all its inhabitants\ncoming on the historical stage of the world as a person, through\nthe manifestation of a personal will in foreign politics, which are\nthe country\u2019s assertion as a personal conscience. Thus a people is\nacknowledged as a nation by the rest of the world the moment when,\nthrough an action, the final scope of which is purely national, it\nasserts itself as a living organism able to manifest a will and act\nupon it. What Machiavelli had termed the _corruttela_ of Italy was the\nabsence of national and religious consciousness, and he had pointed a\nway out of it.\n\nHe was too much of a positive mind not to realise that the difference\nbetween past and modern times was due to a spiritual difference.\nNot knowing what to attack in the mentality of his countrymen, both\nclever and learned beyond words, he thought that the only great\ndifference between ancient Rome and the Italy of the Cinquecento were\nthe political institutions which of old had been based on a religion\nthat pervaded the whole of civic life, and now were quite a practical\naffair modified continually by the chance of other countries waging\nwar in Italy. His great blunder, the notion he had that the Roman\nstate-religion of Pagan times would be the one chance of salvation for\nhis own time is to be considered with due allowance for the ignorance\nof the sixteenth century as to the real import of the notion of\nprogress. Machiavelli pronounced human things to be always in movement,\nbut in spite of this intuition he could not detect the processional\ncharacter of such movement. As it was, it was sufficient to induce\nhim to reject the notion of the natural state of Man as a constant so\ndear to Grotius. Yet it could not help him to realise that his own\ntimes, with all their wickedness, might be thought superior to Roman\ntimes; and Guicciardini, a friend of his, felt himself much wiser than\nMachiavelli because he had no illusion on the possibility of making\na nation out of his countrymen. It was absurd to him, to be always\ncalling on the Romans for example, it was just like wanting a donkey\nto gallop horsewise! But whatever the wisdom of Guicciardini, who\nmade his God of his own private peace and well-being, a God no less\nexacting than the State of Machiavelli, and considered the world as\nhis world, thereby enforcing to irrelativism the subjective atomism\nthat was disintegrating Italy, Machiavelli was a wonder child of genius\nwhilst his wise friend was merely a clever gentleman making egotism the\nspecial study of his life.\n\nMussolini\u2019s view on the civic regeneration of the Italian politically\namorphous classes is very much like Machiavelli\u2019s. Political\nindifference is also to him a result of the lack of religiousness in\nthe spirit animating Italians in their public life. But four hundred\nyears have passed and he could not if he wished turn to the state\nreligion of Pagan Rome. If the basis of social life has to be religion,\nthe positive religion has to be the one historically belonging to the\npeople.\n\nIn spite of the Machiavellian conception of history, the sixteenth\ncentury was to see the introduction of the experimental method, as\npractised in natural science, in the treatment of history at the hands\nof no less a man than Guicciardini. His _Storia d\u2019Italia_ is in twenty\nbooks and covers the period between 1494 and 1534, thus beginning\nwith the invasion of Charles VIII of France and ending with the fall\nof Florence. Francesco de Sanctis, with the heart of a man of the\nRisorgimento, commenting upon this work, so remarkable from many points\nof view, says that the historical period of which it treats could\nrightly have been called \u201cThe Tragedy of Italy,\u201d but that the historian\nhas not the slightest notion either of the unity or of the import of\nthis tragic drama. One could object to the great critic that to realise\nsuch oneness of drama was impossible to Guicciardini, as the tragedy\nhad its root in the historian\u2019s unconsciousness of this oneness or\nrather of the possibility of this oneness, since such oneness did not\nexist in Italy when Guicciardini wrote, except perhaps in the heart of\nhis friend Machiavelli. People of other countries provided them with\nthe political events and the philosophical theories that kept their\nbrains going.\n\nThe works of Grotius were taken and easily studied in the land of\njurisprudence, for the studies that went on flourishing were law\nand history. But the purpose was a sterile erudition, at least at\nthe moment, for apathy had reached such a superlative degree that\nthe martyrdom of men like Bruno and Socino passed unheeded\u2014worse\nthan unheeded, not understood\u2014so that it is absurd to hear modern\nFree-thinkers reproach the Church with the death of Bruno, who was far\nfrom questioning the right of the Church to burn him. The Church in its\npractical policy, like all the institutions in Italy, was lacking in\nideas and in life. The centre of civilisation had moved northward, and\nsouth of the Alps people were getting more and more away from it, more\nand more effeminate. In a land where indifference was the shroud of a\nmartyr, Churchmen who knew Bruno for the heretic he truly was could\nnot be expected to realise that apart from his heresy he had given the\nworld an idea that would enable modern thought to realise the part\nplayed by religion in man\u2019s life and to reject the very idea which\nhad severed man from authority. The seventeenth century, inaugurated\nin Italy by the burning of Bruno, had in literature little to boast\nof besides the _Jerusalemme liberata_ of Tasso, for it began with the\n_Arcadia_ of Sannazaro and ended with the _Arcadia_ of Guarini. On\nthe other hand Campanella, the most eminent philosopher, was not the\nonly one. Although the philosophers became less and less original they\nmaintained a sufficient theoretical interest to accept all that France\nand England were throwing on the world.\n\nPerhaps nothing is more expressive of the life of the mind than\nthis temporary intellectual dearth and sterility of a race whose\nfaculties were, even then, far above the average. Reduced to political\nnon-existence and therefore to speculative unproductiveness, the whole\ncountry seemed to have gone to pieces just on purpose to let the new\nnations shake off the yoke of history, of a history too heavy with\nits pagan heritance to allow full play to the new forces of modern,\nthat is to say Christian, civilisation. For modern thought and modern\npolitics seemed to reject authority and history, in order to have the\npossibility of displaying what they held virtually in their medi\u00e6val\nand Christian youth. They rid themselves of the past just as the\nChurch had done at her start, throwing overboard Pagan culture. But\nis it not allowable to think that just as the Church ceased to be\nanti-philosophical as soon as it had asserted its original intuition,\nmodern nations will cease to be anti-historic now that the value of\nman as a man has been asserted, and has even been over-asserted? For\nif such were the case then Italy\u2019s standing out of the game, in order\nto elaborate slowly the historical forces that may contribute to give\nback to the world the ballast it seems to have lost, would appear to\nbe in harmony with the developing process of Mind. Nations have their\ndawn, their twilight, and their night, but Mind never rests or sleeps,\nand through their individual characteristics all the races tell more\nor less directly on the whole life of mankind. If Italy had to stand\naside to let England and France assert the individual worth of the\nmost inferior human beings, and work up systems where the weakest may\nbe heard in legal circles, then her attitude all through the sixteenth\ncentury is that of a boxer training for his next match. To rid politics\nand law of the idea that legitimised all authority by appeal to the\nWill of God (as it was commonly understood to be a kind of _Deux ex\nMachina_) something had to be appealed to that could be considered as a\nreligious support on the modern side. Nature was upheld as antagonistic\nto superior authority and religious interference. Yet Nature, at least\nto the men of the seventeenth century, was the work of God, and if\nmankind was endowed with a longing, or beset with a necessity for\nsociety, surely the Creator of mankind was responsible for it. The fact\nis that it was not of the will of God that the jurists and philosophers\nwanted to be rid, for they could have found cogent arguments to uphold\nthe thesis, so dear a century later to Rousseau, that God had created\nman free, and that he was therefore at liberty to choose the political\nconstitution that suited him best\u2014conforming by so doing to the Will\nof God: it was the authority of men, the authority of tradition, which\ntaught that it had always been the natural lot of some men to obey,\nand the natural lot of others to command; and that is far more Pagan\nin its political origin and Aristotelian in its theoretical form than\nCatholic. It was the hierarchy of birth, quite a Pagan notion, that\nmen were fighting against in Northern Europe during the sixteenth,\nseventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.\n\nAristotle\u2019s first book on politics settles the point for the hellenic\nworld. Some men are born to be masters; some are born to be slaves. He\nthat is to be a master is born with the qualities that befit command;\nhe that is to be a slave is born with the qualities required to fulfil\norders. Were it not so, Nature would have failed to fit each of them\nfor the end to which it brought them into life. Man was what he was to\nbe anterior to his birth. As to slavery, as an institution it was to be\ndeplored; it was rather sad for the people who were born slaves, and\nterribly immoral at best, but it was an evil that could not be avoided\ninasmuch as it was essential to the nature of society. The metaphysics\nand religion of the day could not conceive of any alteration in the\nnature of things.\n\nThe Stoics and Epicureans did improve, but not much, the idea of\nliberty. The best thing for men to do was to know Nature and their\nown natural disposition, not to go against the natural bent of things\nand of their constitution. Thus the part of Fate was reduced and the\ndignity of man asserted. But the reduction and assertion would have\nbeen more verbal than actual had it not been for the Romans, who with\ntheir realistic mind could not overlook the fact that man\u2019s _virtus_,\nor lack of it, made a lot of difference in his life. Their religion\nand philosophy though lacked originality and had no adequate notion of\nliberty.\n\nChristianity was to relieve mankind from such a fate. Man is in the\nworld to save his soul. The grace of God is necessary to him, but he\nonly can achieve his own salvation. If you want your horse to jump,\nas the sportsmen of the old school used to say, give him his head;\nthe freedom to use his neck, head and shoulder to the best of his\nability. If God means man to save his soul, he must have given him\nsufficient freedom to be made responsible. And in fact the proclamation\nof this power of man is the import of the New Testament. Everything\nis possible to him that believeth. This is far from Aristotle, so\nfar that men could not at first realise what it meant, and that the\nabolition of slavery is only recent is sufficient to show the slowness\nof the process through which the good word of the Gospel has reached\ntheoretical consciousness and practical realisation.\n\nMan\u2019s liberty, man\u2019s dignity, were asserted all through the Scholastic\nperiod and the prayer of Thomas Aquinas thanking God for the dignity He\nhad bestowed upon man is a good proof of the fact. It could, therefore,\nonly be through the greatest misrepresentation of historical facts\nthat Pagan times were identified with the cause of liberty and equality\nof men, two ideas that are essentially Christian and were in their\npresent form unknown to Paganism. Such perversion of facts cannot be,\nhowever, ascribed to a wilful adulteration of history. The men who\nupheld it are too many and some are too obviously sincere. Yet on the\nother hand it is impossible to ascribe it to an instinctive foreboding\nof immanence as nowadays understood. The only possible explanation is\nthe force of repulsion for the immediate past that is inherent in the\nhistorical assertion of any new social force. A new age always asserts\nitself by fighting its antecedents and often the very cause of its\ncoming to light.\n\nHobbes, rejecting sovereignty by the grace of God to enforce his own\nconception of the sovereignty of his _Leviathan_ grounded on the\n_Bellum omnium contra omnes_, is merely conforming to the philosophy of\nNature, which, as materialism, was to him a religion, a new religion\nthat must take the place of the old one, at least amongst educated men.\nIn its objectivity Nature stood to him as God; an awful divinity that\nhad a good deal in common with the God of Calvin in the inalterability\nof its will. But few of the new thinkers had the courage to be as\ncoherent as he was. For he was quite aware that the substitution of\nNature for the God of Christianity, as the ultimate reality to which\npolitical forms had to be traced back, made for a greater implacability\nof political laws. The others sometimes pretended to believe and mostly\ndid believe that the unknown _quidditas_ which they call human nature\nhad a luminous social instinct that had been marred through what they\ncalled the Dark Ages; and they did not realise that the belief in such\nnature of man was elaborated in the schools of the Middle Ages, and\nthat if it was taken for granted as much as the geometrical postulate\nthat makes the three inner angles of a triangle equivalent to two\nright angles, it was just as abstract and could no more be proved on\nexperimental ground. The nature of man taken as implying the necessity\nof or longing for social arrangements is illustrated in history; but it\nis the essence of history to relate to men the deeds of men, thereby\nis enforced the necessity of having society in order to have history.\nSo that isolated man cannot enter history. Of men anterior to society\nwe can, therefore, know nothing. But prehistoric times are not of\nnecessity presocial; indeed, the art that flourished in such periods\nshows the existence of social intercourse in times of which we have, up\nto now, no historical knowledge. In any case the philosophy of politics\nif it wants to borrow the experimental method of natural science must\ntake history for its basis, with all the limitations that this implies,\nin order to reach positive conclusions. The political thinkers of the\nseventeenth century thought and acted as men of deep convictions, but\nof very faulty methods; the world they cast into shape reposed on an\nassumption which is the most metaphysic of all the metaphysic axioms\nthey hated so much; it will be more and more obvious through the\neighteenth century.\n\nItaly stood aside. Italian minds could not have made such a position\ntheirs. The attitude of a Bacon, of a Descartes, of a Hobbes, could\nnot be assumed in the land of Machiavelli and Bruno, the fathers of\nthe idea of history understood as a constructive process of Science\nand Society, of Campanella, the man who foreshadowed in the sixteenth\ncentury the phenomenologic conception of reality and the notion of\nimmanence: which may have been, which was in fact heretic, but is\nundoubtedly the offspring of Christianity, and knows that it is.\nThe race whose energy and virility had been maimed by the constant\ncontemplation of the past, by thorough identification with the past,\nhad been politically stunned like the people of the Bible who turned\nback when they should have been looking and proceeding forward. Italian\nscholars kept assimilating and admiring the philosophical production of\nforeigners, and the more readily praised and the more truly appreciated\nthe new theories that they felt farther from imitating them. What they\ncould give they gave, in legal and historical erudition, preparing the\nmaterials on which Vico was to build his imposing Scienza Nuova and\npreparing the historical ground for the philosophy that flourishes two\ncenturies after him, just as Scholasticism had prepared the abstract\nground on which the theories, that were to give their democratic or\nindividualistic impulsion to the modern world, flourished two centuries\nafter a reaction had started against the abstractness of Scholasticism.\n\nFrancesco de Sanctis realises it because he has lived for this oneness\nof Italy, thereby giving it the full reality of an historical person.\nGuicciardini was as interested in the calamities that befell the\nindividuals as de Sanctis was in the tragedy of his country, and if he\nfilled twenty books with the matter of two good books it was because\nItaly\u2019s genius had lost for the time being its synthetic power. He was\nan accurate man, with immense knowledge and great acuteness of mind\ntaking each fact in its most minute particularity, but losing sight of\nthe importance of such events as the Reformation. He was a naturalist\nand uses the same methods as if he studied vegetables or minerals,\nlooking into the intimate structure of facts to find out why they are\nas they are. Men therefore appear in his work like a product of Nature,\nwhose actions are as fatally determined as those of an animal. It is\nimpossible, therefore, to find in Guicciardini\u2019s twenty books a single\npage alive with the feelings that throb in Machiavelli\u2019s historical\nworks; he keeps the calm brow of the naturalist counting the legs of an\ninsect. And Italy, until Vico comes, will go on between these two ideas\nof history and society.\n\nGuicciardini sees man free in appearance, but in reality bound to act\naccording to the determinations of his character, of his temperament,\nof his circumstances; and the wise historian can very nearly make out\nbeforehand that what he shall do with the same approximate certainty\nwith which the naturalist can tell the way the swallows will take when\nthe wind and atmospheric pressure are known.\n\nMachiavelli foreshadows a kind of sociology and in his truly Italian\nsynthetic view of history he sees the play of the various forces,\nspiritual forces, that make of the human world a different realm of\nreality from that of nature, where forces exclusively physical are\nat play. \u201cPatria,\u201d liberty, nationality, humanity, social classes,\ninterests and passions, are to him forces that move man, but would\nnever move a plant or a tree.\n\nBut the fact is, to quote again De Sanctis, that Machiavelli is the\nstarting point of a period and Guicciardini is the ultimate end of the\npreceding age.\n\nFrance, Spain, England, Germany and the Netherland, were overrun with\nblood, shed either through the War of Religion or in consequence of\nthe Inquisition, in the proceedings of which the governments of the\ndifferent states interfered to further their political interests though\nseldom on the side of mercy. In Italy there was no struggle; men do not\nface death or torture without passionate convictions; and while other\nraces, young as they were, had such strong convictions the country\nwhich had reaped too easy and too rich a harvest between the eleventh\nand fifteenth centuries, had given all that her assimilation of ancient\nwisdom could give, and at the end of her career she sat exhausted on\nthe wayside to watch the young ones at play, as a connoisseur watches\na boxing-match and takes all the hints which may be useful to him.\nMetaphysics could not flourish under such circumstances, as virility is\nthe first requisite for original thinking, so Italian scholars stood on\nthe watch taking law and thought from abroad.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE\n\n\nThe history of France from the advent of Louis XI to that of Louis XIV\ndisplays in its development constructive tendencies so definite and\nconstant that its edifice, at once harmonious and imposing, seems the\nrealisation of an architectural scheme perfectly in keeping with the\ngenius of France. Everything tended to that unification of the country,\nto that union of the provinces the necessary consequence of which\nmust be the centralisation of administration and the concentration of\npolitical power in the hands of the sovereign.\n\nThe idea of absolute monarchy has never been conceived and realised\nin exactly the same way as in France. M. Jacques Bainville is fully\njustified in holding that the kings of France made it their main duty\nto concentrate all their efforts on identifying themselves and their\ndynasty with the development and consolidation of the unification of\nthe country. But it has yet to be shown what is really the origin of a\nconception of political reality that so far seems to be unique.\n\nMonarchy was indeed just as absolute in Spain and in Austria. But\nin both countries it remained comparatively feudal. So that the\n_bourgeois_ origin ascribed by M. Bainville to the Capetian Monarchy,\nits intimate relations with the Middle Class amounting to a sort of\nmutual league against the great feudal lords, is sufficient to endow\nit with the modern character that attracts the student, eager to\npenetrate to the living core of the life of political institutions. It\ncould not, however, account for the rationality of its development,\nfor the harmony and beauty of its historical features. In the last\nhalf of the sixteenth and all through the seventeenth century France\nand her monarchy are endowed with a beauty that exercises a permanent\nfascination. It would be true to say that the part played by France\nat that time in the civilisation of the world was to a large degree\n\u00e6sthetic.\n\nModern philosophy, above all in Italy, understands art as the\nexpression of the life of mind. Hence, a battle, a treaty of\npeace, a law, a form of government, can be considered an artistic\nmasterpiece just as well as a poem or a monument. Now between the\ncoronation of Henry IV and that of Louis XIV the monarchy of France\nperfectly expresses all that is positive and, therefore, historically\nconstructive in the life of the country. Its spiritual and practical\nforces meet in the king\u2019s person and receive thereby their historical\nrealisation.\n\n\u201c_L\u2019Etat c\u2019est moi_,\u201d says Louis XIV. \u201c_Cogito ergo sum_,\u201d says\nDescartes. The self-assertion of the king identifying the whole of\npolitical reality with his empirical person is not without affinity\nwith the import of the Cartesian assumption in which the criterion of\ncertitude, the root of all reality, was identified with the individual\nact of thinking. The self-assertion spontaneously coming on the lips of\nthe Sovereign and that coming out of the meditation of the philosopher\nis one and the same thing. It is the consequence of sixteen centuries\nof Christianity, and in their mathematical conciseness the two formulas\nare the best proclamation of the genius of France in all its clear,\nsimple and luminous logic. They are, however, at the same time a\nrevelation of what is weak in that genius. To be so clear, so luminous\nand so simple, French philosophy was bound to be abstract and radical.\nThe radicalness of mind common to the Jacobins and to the more modern\nanti-clericals and democrats caused the elimination of the feudal class\nas a factor in political life, a fact which was bound to carry in its\ntrail the political revolution of the eighteenth and the economic\none of the nineteenth century. When a government reduces a class to\npolitical non-existence the part formerly discharged by that class must\nbe entrusted to another, which is bound to claim in exchange for the\nsupport offered to the government in the struggle against the class\ndisplaced the privileges previously granted to its rival for services\nrendered to the state.\n\nFrance one, under the government of one man. It bears a family likeness\nto the tragedies of Racine and Corneille. Such an idea is great and\nbeautiful as _Horace_ and _Le Cid_. But it owes its grandeur to a\nsimplicity that condemns it to leave out much of political reality,\nwhich is indeed as complex and multiform as life itself. Therefore,\nthough it is beautiful, its beauty is bound to be a tragic one. When\nthe concept had become a fact, when Louis XIV could say _l\u2019Etat c\u2019est\nmoi_; when France was at least one under her King, the French monarchy\nwas in the position of the bullet that has been shot right in the\nbull\u2019s-eye. The aim is perfectly caught, the steely little thing is\nhelplessly stuck there, useless. The funeral knell of absolute monarchy\nis rung by this identification of the Sovereign with the State. As a\npolitical institution it was perfect. Perfection is static and cannot,\ntherefore, belong to life, which moves towards perfection but never is\nperfect.\n\nPolitically the feudal nobility was hewn down with the indifference\nwith which a venerable forest is razed to the ground to make a French\ngarden. The trouble was that society is not a garden which once laid\ndown can be kept by a succession of good gardeners in consonancy with\nthe plans of the architect. In France society was to go on living its\nhistorical life of eternal alteration and formation. The political\nabolition of the nobility was a most active ferment to breed more\nspeedily the modifications to come. The French nobility lost its\nvirtues; corrupted by the idleness enforced upon its members, it\ninfested the moral atmosphere and this in spite of the very remarkable\nmen produced by some of the old stocks. Soon the other classes required\nits social elimination and they wanted it to be as radical as the\npolitical annihilation had been. Undoubtedly the kings had been obliged\nto destroy what should have been their natural support in order to\nconform with the political conception that had been elaborated by\nlogical French minds. The king and his people making one without the\nintervening links of classes\u2014no constitution could be more simple; but\nits realisation required the amputation of what is necessary to the\nlife of any monarchy.\n\nDescartes and the Roi-Soleil are so adequate an expression of their\nepoch that they may be considered as the characters of the prologue\nto the tragedy that was to bring the next century to its close. M.\nJacques Maritain has rightly bestowed on Descartes the epithet of\nrevolutionary, but it could be extended to Louis XIV if one did not\nrun the risk of seeming paradoxical. For both their self-assertions,\npolitically and theoretically absolute, are equally anti-religious and\nanti-historical. The position assumed by Mind whenever man is really\nreligious implies self-negation. If God is, He must be infinite and\nMan, by comparison, nothing; at least such is the logical sequence\nof the doctrines upheld by most religious people. And when Mind is\nspeculatively too poor to realise the necessity of the religious moment\nin which man bows down to everything that is not his beloved self and\naccepts the law that such recognition begets, man can turn to history\nand trace there intuitively (as the first great thinker of Italy has\ndone), the part played by each one of mind\u2019s activities. Religion\nthen appears independently of personal conviction, a constant element\nin the life of man, more or less preponderant, always there, as the\nrecognition of all that is to man not-self. It is where modern thought\nhas failed to realise this, either theoretically or historically, that\nit knows only the first term of the relation which is the basis of\nevery social organisation. Liberty and law are correlative terms just\nas are light and shadow. Liberty is the claim of the subject and law\nsprings from the recognition of the object. Louis XIV and Descartes,\nthanks to their unbounded selfishness, assert emphatically their\nempirical individuality. For them the self swallows up the other term\nthe not-self, that the modern world after them seems to ignore.\n\nDescartes was endowed with the most precious gifts that make the\nscientist and the thinker. Yet it can be said that his greatest\nfortune lay in the fact that he embodies most perfectly all that\nis characteristic of the French mind. Foreigners, even when their\nknowledge of his language is far from perfect, can take his _Discours\nsur la M\u00e9thode_ and read it with perfect ease and a feeling of\nintellectual and \u00e6sthetic well-being. To read this and to walk through\nthe park of Versailles are equally indispensable to understand that\ngreat century in France. And both walk and reading make very much the\nsame impression.\n\nIt is true that the reader will easily pick up in the Cartesian\ntheories ideas known to St. Augustin and to the Scholastic Doctors\nagainst whom Descartes reacted so violently. The visitor might just as\nwell notice in the park or on the noble fa\u00e7ade of the palace lines and\ndecorative patterns reminding him of the Renaissance Villas seen in\nItaly, but this does not deprive the palace and its setting of their\npurely French character. The fact is that the seventeenth century with\nthe last half of the sixteenth and the first of the eighteenth, appears\nin the life of Mind, i.e. in history, as an Anglo-French period,\nwhereas the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth had been in\ntheir artistic and intellectual production mainly Italian.\n\nThe ideas elaborated in France and in England had come from everywhere\nand from all centuries, Italy being chiefly the historical and natural\nagent of communication, a sort of historical point of convergence\nbetween antiquity and modern times as she is geographically between\neast and west.\n\nThe idea of originality, without playing upon words, can be called the\n\u201coriginal sin\u201d of our modern world; born from the contempt of Bacon and\nDescartes for the past, it is ending now in Futurism and Bolshevism.\nTo attempt to create something new without roots in the past in art,\npolitics, science or philosophy is not merely absurd, it is impossible.\nThe living dialectic we term history displays each of its moments as\nthe logical sequence of the preceding one and the elaborating stage of\nthe next. The work of Descartes will live as long as our intellectual\nlife lasts. Yet this very work, in which he inaugurates the\nanti-historical method, is the best illustration of the law of history,\ndisplaying as it does the riches of a mind in which were interwoven the\nlegacies of the past and the germs of all that was to be subjective and\npositive in the philosophy of several centuries.\n\nLouis XIV brought a political form to the precision of a mathematical\nformula, that is to say he made it absolute and by so doing rendered\nthe evolution, characteristic of all social organisation, impossible\nfor the monarchy he represented. That which is absolute is unalterable.\nTo be absolute this French monarchy had to be static; whereas every\npolitical system must be dynamic. Perfection is the negation of\ndevelopment. The person of Louis XIV was the perfect realisation of\nFrance\u2019s ideal of an absolute Sovereign and as such it was, therefore,\nthe conclusion of the process which had brought him to the throne.\n\nThe method of English empiricism, which consisted, after Bacon, in\nlooking at the exterior world with wide open eyes to get a notion of\nreality based on sense knowledge, was taken up in France with as much\nenthusiasm as the theories of Descartes were taken up in England. The\ntwo countries balanced each other, France tending to the unity of\nman\u2019s consciousness, England to the full realisation of the world of\nsenses. Life obviously is neither of these but their combination or\nmore properly their synthesis. So that the mutual influence of both\ncountries is the best illustration of the life of mind, single in its\ndevelopment, multiform in its manifestation.\n\nWhat is tragic in the philosophy of Descartes is almost perfectly\nillustrated in his own life. No one has more eloquently proclaimed the\nsubjectivity of life and reality than he has through his own scholarly\nselfishness. Only Louis XIV could be his rival in this self-assertion.\nThe self-centred monarch, the self-centred scholar, can vie with each\nother. Therefore he may be held to be just as anti-religious and\nanti-historical as Louis XIV; the one could not forget the majesty, the\nother the genius, with which he felt himself invested to bow down in\nworship of the King of Kings, in worship of the Word of eternal thought.\n\nYet both were believers and convinced Roman Catholics. The\ncontradiction of fact thus introduced in their lives find its most\nexquisite expression in the vow of Descartes, when he pledged himself\nto make a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loreto if he could get rid of all\nthe duties that fell to him as a soldier, as a man of the world. They\nprevented him from attending freely to the satisfaction of his longing\nfor scientific researches. Hence his impatience to retire from this\nvast world, full of rights and duties, where men suffer and require\nhelp and love. The anti-religiousness of such feeling need not be\nemphasised, it is obviously worse than that of many people who, calling\nthemselves atheists, were drawn into deifying nature or their own\nnegation of God!\n\nTo tell man that he has only to turn his mind inwards to find in\nthe most intimate recess of his soul the criterion of Truth and\nconsequently of Justice, is a most Christian saying. But in the works\nof St. Augustin, where Descartes found it, it implies either the belief\nin God\u2019s presence in the heart of every believer, or the immanence\nof the transcendental self in every empirical self, whereas in\nDescartes\u2019 own writings and mind neither of the two is to be found. His\nrationalism seems brutally to reject belief outside philosophy, outside\nthe theoretical and intellectual world altogether. It only _seems_ to\ndo so, because it is one of the first stepping-stones of Idealism, but\nof this he could not even dream and he went on establishing between\nwill and knowledge such a relation that every rational act ought to\nbe good and every irrational one bad. Hence the duty of vulgarising\nrational thinking through education, which was to become paramount in\npedagogy and politics. Hence again the radicalness of the difference\nbetween educated and uneducated which was to produce in our modern\ndemocracies a class difference far stronger than that of the Middle\nAges when a man could be made squire or even knight provided he proved\nhis personal valour in actual deeds.\n\nEnglish philosophy received through Hobbes all the rationalism it\nneeded to balance the excessive empiricism of Bacon and the world was\nready for Illuminism, which, originating in England, became one of the\ngreatest and noblest movements recorded in history in spite of its many\nflaws.\n\nItaly could not, indeed, offer anything to make up for such rationalism\nand empiricism. With her political virility the whole country was daily\nlosing its speculative originality and fecundity, for as Vincenzo Cuoco\nwas to realise a century and a half later, the two manifestations of\nman\u2019s genius, political and theoretical, usually go hand in hand. The\nintellectual gifts of Italian scholars were wasted in academic pastimes\nor devoted to works of erudition, which prepared for the genius of Vico\nthe materials of his historical vision of reality, but were of little\navail to counteract the impatience displayed by France and England,\nturning their backs upon history in order to feel free to shake off the\nyoke of every traditional authority. Feeling, intention, worship, so\nmany elements of spiritual life, were almost discarded to make room for\nthe goddess Reason.\n\nArt and Religion were thus denied in their essence. Art could only be\nat best didactic or hedonistic, it was, therefore, considered at the\nservice either of thought as a means of vulgarisation of scientific\nknowledge, or of sensation as capable of causing agreeable emotions.\nAs to Religion it was disposed of in a more radical way. Theoretically\nmisrepresented, historically ignored, it was to be tolerated by English\nphilosophy for practical reasons as a political instrument and as the\nbest educative force. It had been useful and necessary in the centuries\nof dark ignorance, but to the century that was to call itself the age\nof light it was a hindrance, an impediment of which mankind was to be\nrid at all cost. Illuminism, that is to say the enlightenment of the\npeople, and the anti-religiousness of the philosophers were identified.\nThe war waged against religion was confused with the war waged against\nignorance. One step only was needed to make of ignorance a synonym for\nreligion.\n\nNobody waited to enquire why religion was everywhere and why it was\nalways a factor in social life; nobody anyway could have answered the\nquestion as it would have implied historical research, a synthetic\nview of history, for which no one was fit. The Italians lacked the\nphilosophical basis for such work, France and England lacked the turn\nof mind necessary to do it with intelligence. Germany was still in her\nteens until Leibniz came to proclaim the intellectual coming of age of\nhis country. Thus religion was a puzzling problem to philosophers and\nthe lack of intelligence towards this enigmatic X was to breed a great\nmany political difficulties. Religion alone could have made up for the\noncoming individualism, first social, then economic, which threatened\nuniversal destruction.\n\nMan was raised to the honours of the altar, hailed as ultimate reality\nin what is most negative and empirical in him. His intellectual\nactivity was to become the principle of reality, which indeed it is\nin so far as it is transcendental and, therefore, divine. But the\nseventeenth and the eighteenth centuries could only know this activity\nas far as it is empirical and, therefore, non-divine. Illuminism, with\nall its generosity and noble impulses, was unable to realise what\ntranscends the reason and experience of every single man. It was to be\nthe lot of Germany and, above all, Italy to conceive in speculative\nform the life of Mind and to realise the natural function of religion\nthroughout history.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nGIAMBATTISTA VICO\n\n\nIn their studies of the Neapolitan philosopher, Croce and Gentile have\ndone their work so thoroughly that to anyone approaching the same\nsubject it would be very nearly impossible to say anything both new and\ngood. The material here used to illustrate the contribution of Italy\u2019s\nmost original thinker to modern speculation and practical life will be\ndrawn from the works of Gentile and Croce.\n\nVico is the most Italian of Italy\u2019s thinkers. Yet a close survey of his\nideas reveals in his works, besides the most Italian of intellectual\nheritage, the presence of the deepest and richest tendencies of the\nmodern philosophy of Europe, be it French, English, or German. He is\nthus the best illustration of his own theory. In the man of genius\nthe most concrete historical determinations blend with the broadest\nuniversality of ideas. But his critics have usually chosen to look\nexclusively to either of these according to their own nationality; and\nthis way of abstracting from one of his qualities has made him obscure\nand baffling.\n\nWhile his countrymen lived upon the contribution of France and\nEngland, Vico, to the naturalistic intuition of atomism, which implies\nindividualism in morals and politics, opposed the idealistic intuition\nof history as the developing process of mankind. To the abstract\ncontemplation of clear ideas that were a matter of mathematical\nintuitions and deductions he opposed the self-generated progress of\nmankind that goes on creating its own world. In this he revealed\nhimself as a direct son of the Italian Humanism and Renaissance, an\nanachronism, and the fact was nearly fatal to his fame, as this put\nhim, as a writer, in a position of great inferiority to Locke or\nDescartes. He never deals with the question he had sat down to treat,\nbecause he never realised beforehand where he was going, and it was\nonly on his way that his mind became properly fixed on the point that\nwas obscurely tormenting him. One ought not to read either the titles\nor prefaces of his books, for he usually starts on a traditional and\neven stale matter. Thus it is that starting as a good Platonist to\nwrite what Michelet took his Scienza Nuoa to be, that is to say a\nphilosophy of history, he got stranded in the deepest speculation on\nthe nature of man\u2019s mind quite in contradiction to the doctrine of\nPlato. He had begun by considering the origin of man\u2019s intellectual\nactivity. The difficulty was great, but he casually observes that\nwhatever the difficulty of the problem and its obscurity, one always\nhas the steady light of the conviction that _the world of the Gentile\nnations is the achievement of men; and that the principles of it must\nbe found in the nature of our human mind and in the force of our\nunderstanding_.\n\nSuch proclamation of man\u2019s power to create his own world, the only\nhistorical world, was indeed a revolution and Rousseau\u2019s theories,\nevolved to ensure the liberty of man to arrange society to suit his\nrequirements, are childish compared to this sublime thought of a man\nwho was a Catholic with all the humility and simplicity of a child.\nThe qualities of the historian were in him balanced by those of the\njurist and through the researches that were meant to give a philosophy\nof history he went on building a philosophy of Mind. But before\nstarting to expound the forms of Mind\u2019s activity, for which he claimed\nthe right of historical citizenship, it may be good to note that Vico\u2019s\ncriticism or continuation of previous systems was simply dialectical;\ninasmuch as he contradicted the main thesis of his favourite authors\njust as well as those of Descartes, who was his pet aversion, or\naccepted them to transform them. For instance, he took the Cartesian\ncertitude and opposed it to truth; calling certain that which is the\nresult of particularising knowledge if one may term it so, or of\nknowledge directed to the particular. And he took the nature of man as\nGrotius or Hobbes had misunderstood it, a kind of mechanism the laws\nof which were as fatally unalterable as the instinct of beasts, and\nchanged it into the nature of Mind, quite spiritual and\u2014there is no\nother word\u2014Christian.\n\nVico turned to the periods of history which were the most remote from\nthe psychology of his time. Consequently he was led to study the\ninferior forms of mind such as imagination, violence, simplicity;\nwhereas others had meditated only upon the nature of man as they found\nhim refined by Religion and laws, and had grounded their theories on\nhis mature intellect. They ignored the imagination of his youth. They\nstudied his will morally trained and overlooked the wild passions of\nhis forefathers. It is, therefore, legitimate to say that Vico came\nto reject the basis of man\u2019s natural rights grounded as they were\non a false notion of human nature; and gave concrete ground for the\nassertion of man\u2019s spiritual rights and duties.\n\nArt, or as he calls it, poetry, is not born through the caprice of man\nto give pleasure or clothe philosophic sayings. It was born out of\nnatural necessity, it is in short the first operation of man\u2019s mind.\nMan, before he can conceive a notion, such as table or dog, realises\nthem with an operation not of the intellect, but of his imagination.\nBefore he can reflect with a pure mind, he perceives with emotion.\nBefore he can speak in prose he speaks in verses. The nearer poetry\ngets to the particular, the better it is; the higher reflection rises\ntowards the universal the more perfect it is. Yet if one can say that\nthe poet is the sense of mankind and philosophy its intellect, one\u2019s\nconclusion coincides with the saying of Scholasticism, _Nihil est in\nintellectu qui prius non fuerit in sensu_, since without poetry it is\nimpossible to have philosophy and civilisation. After many views on the\nsubject, often contradictory, his real idea is undoubtedly that the\nfirst form of mind is poetry, anterior to the intellect and free from\nreflection and reason. Myths, he holds, do not refer inevitably to real\nmen, they are essentially historical truth under the form it is wont to\ntake in primitive minds. Any myth is an individual, as Hercules, and\naccomplishes individual actions\u2014as he kills the Hydra or cleanses the\nstables\u2014but it is also a concept, the notion of useful and glorious\nactivity. It is, therefore, both a universal as the expression of a\nconcept and a creation of man\u2019s imagination as a particular fancy.\n\nPassing to morality and to society, although he reacted against\nrationalism, Vico\u2019s assertion of the irrational has nothing to do with\nRousseau\u2019s. He took for his ground history, literature, arch\u00e6ology and\nabove all, law. Thus his first discovery led him to substitute for the\nGolden Age that had been postulated as the initial stage of mankind,\n\u201cthe natural state of man,\u201d an obscure period in which man did not\ndiffer much from the wild beasts and was at best an irrational and\nnon-intellectual being. He was to develop the great and immortal notion\nthat lay hidden at the core of \u201cjus naturalism,\u201d the notion of society\nas immanent in man, which had been in the air since Thomas Aquinas had\nspoken of it as of a sixth sense of man.\n\nUtilitarianism is the first target on which Vico opens fire, and he\ntakes it as Hobbes and Spinoza had formulated it. Utility cannot be a\nsufficient ground for morals since it springs from the temporal part\nof man whilst morals are grounded on his eternal part. No principle\nof utilitarianism, whatever the forms ascribed to it by philosophers,\ncan justify the process of differentiation, which is the constant\ndevelopment of social organisations. Deceit, force, need, imply as\nalready in existence the society they are supposed to have produced.\nHow could the supposedly happy and simple first owners of the soil be\ndeceived into giving up their claims, if they had no desire whatever\nand no relation of any kind. For relations imply some kind of social\nstate even if tacitly agreed upon. As to force, the first rulers were\nnot merely strong in their individual force; their power had a far\ndeeper root as they invariably appear at first as protectors of the\nweak and as antagonists of all anti-social and destructive tendencies;\nand their law was force indeed, but force _a natura pr\u00e6stantiori\ndictata_. The real ground of society is, therefore, moral, and as such\nessentially spiritual.\n\nYet at first sight Vico\u2019s view of the origin of law and society\nappears very much akin to that of \u201cjus naturalism\u201d; but as soon as\nit is understood that Vico\u2019s notion of man\u2019s nature is the Christian\nor spiritual one, then the difference is quite evident. Law to him is\nnatural to man because what is not natural can neither stay nor last.\nFear is certainly the origin of society; not, however, the mere fear of\nwild beasts or hunger but the fear of oneself; fear of solitude due to\nremorse and shame. Out of shame Vico sees arising the senses of honour,\nfidelity, probity, trust in promises, truth in words, honesty in deeds.\nSo that society comes to have moral consciousness for its ground,\nand one can indeed consider society as the realisation of man\u2019s best\nnature, of man\u2019s spiritual conscience. This sense of shame or modesty\ncould be called by empiricism the sense common to all men that enables\nthem to realise without judgment what is necessary or useful to men. It\nis through this sense of decency or shame that the moral consciousness\nis enabled to embody itself in institutions and give stability and\ncertitude to the freewill of man which is of its nature most uncertain.\n\nThe nature of this fear, manifesting itself in remorse or shame, of\nthis sense of decency giving rise to moral consciousness, is easy\nfor us to understand on account of the systematic treatment Mind has\nreceived in subsequent studies, above all in the works of Croce and\nGentile. This fear is what we usually call self-consciousness; and\nwhen we say that a child has grown self-conscious we mean that he\nthinks too much of the opinion of the people who surround him. Now in\nthis case common language, as in many instances, lays a trap for our\nunderstanding, since at first sight it seems to imply that the child\u2019s\nuneasiness of manners is due to a self-centred conception of himself;\nwhereas it is in fact his realising the importance of his surroundings\nthat makes him wish to please his elders, to attract their notice, or\nto appease their indignation when he feels guilty. It is, therefore,\nthe consciousness of the non-self that we term self-consciousness.\nBut this trap is easily avoided, for philosophy knows nowadays that\nit is impossible to reach self-consciousness except through the\nconscience of that which we are not, for _We_ without the rest of\nthe world in opposition to which we are _We_, means nothing at all.\nThus the self-awe in which Vico sees the first origin of society is\nthe consciousness man has of his not-self, of the exterior world, or,\nto use an image, of the immense shadow that surrounds him and is in\nreality his own negativity, all that which he is not. So that if man\nknows shame and remorse in the most absolute solitude it is because in\nhis own heart he feels the presence of a nameless Power.\n\nVico\u2019s is not a speculative hypothesis. Primitive men wandered savage\nand ferocious, without family ties or matrimonial bonds, were the prey\nof the wildest passions. Whence could they receive the law that would\nprevent their mutual destruction? They cannot be saved by the wisdom\nof men since human wisdom does not exist as yet, neither by God, He\nhas retired among His chosen people and left to its fate the rest of\nmankind. But He has left them the character of men and their humanity\nis sufficient to save them. Thunder strikes them with fear, and the\nconsciousness of their impotency, of their own limitation, suggests\nthe confused and obscure notion of that which is not limited. And to\nappease the Almightiness of this infinite and enjoy its favour they\nrefrain from some things and do others. They refrain from satisfying\nsome of their physical cravings and Mind\u2019s liberty is the result; so\nthat liberty is born with her twin sister, moral law, out of the fear\nof God, out of the awe-inspiring consciousness of the not-self. The\nland becomes covered with altars; the caves behold the union of men and\nwomen eager to ensure the Divine favour to their nuptials; the soil is\nbroken to receive the body of the dead who return to the gods. Ethics\nare born with the three fundamental institutions of society, the cult\nof the Deity, matrimony as the first call of society, the veneration of\nthe dead as the first assertion of immortality.\n\nWhy has Croce been able to state, after this energetic assertion of\nVico on the essentially religious origin of society, that the father\nof the philosophy of Mind agrees with the school of natural law in\ntheir purely immanent notion of ethics? Because like them he constructs\nhis science of society independently of revelation. The natural law\nof the Gentile nation spontaneously created by men is the matter of\nhis research not the supernatural law that came down on Sinai for the\nbenefit of the Chosen People. It is not on the idea of law and its\norigin that he criticised Grotius, Pufendorf, and the rest, it is their\nidea of religion that is distinctly quite alien to his.\n\nReligion for Vico can be understood first as a conception of reality as\nsuch; and this is the reason why it is in Gentile\u2019s theories one of the\nessential moments of Mind as recognition of the not-self, or object.\nSecond, it belongs to practical reality as the basis of ethics. In this\ncase religion is the very essence of ethics as it is the very essence\nof truth.\n\nIt is, therefore, evident that what Vico intuitively, perhaps,\nunconsciously, is striving to assert is the eternity of religion,\nhistorically proved apart from any revelation. Thus in his search for\nthe ground of morality he can abstract from positive religion, but how\ncould he abstract from the knowledge of truth, or more than knowledge,\nthe consciousness of truth? Plutarch, after describing the primitive\nreligions and their horrors, wonders if it would not have been better\nnot to have had any religion than to worship the gods in such impious\nways. And Vico, after quoting him, observes that surely when he wrote\nthis he must have lost sight of the fact that from such atrocious\nsuperstitions luminous civilisation developed in due time, whereas\nnothing ever grew on atheism. There is no such thing as historical or\nsocial life without a religion, full either of tenderness or ferocity,\nrational or fantastic, but in any case providing man with the idea,\nmore or less clear, more or less noble, that there is something which\ntranscends the individual, in which all individuals weld into one, and\nwhich provides man\u2019s morality with the object of his moral will, and\nthereby means Law.\n\nIn his understanding of the period in which man had been a brute,\nVico was much nearer to the Bible than the Protestants had been. He\naccepted as a matter of fact the distinction between the Gentiles and\nthe Jews, as implying the radical privation of any supernatural help\nbestowed on the former, and he thought of them as being in a pre-moral\nstate, a state that was indeed devoid of morality, but full of moral\ntendencies, and from which mankind emerged through the realisation of\nthose tendencies. Such realisation is not on the other hand the effect\nof a Divine grace, it is NATURAL, due merely to the development of\nthe natural light granted to every man that comes to life. Man\u2019s free\nwill is weak and between passions and virtue might succumb if he was\nnot upheld in his efforts by Providence. For Vico makes an absolute\ndistinction between the grace of God and Providence. The grace of God,\nin which he firmly believed, is an extraordinary help granted to some\nmen and particularly to the Chosen People; Providence is the ordinary\nhelp of God granted to all men as their birthright so to speak, as\ninherent in their nature as men.\n\nVico stood henceforth as the best antidote to the dangerous side\nof Anglo-French speculation. The philosophy of Mind had yet to be\ndeveloped, but it was sufficiently asserted to claim man and all his\nactivities as belonging to spiritual reality, to historical reality.\nThus what Vico called Providence provided the ground for a more human,\nthat is to say, more spiritual, idea of liberty, just when the men who\nwere going to popularise Illuminism were preparing for their task. But\nhis was a far more difficult idea, and less palatable as well, for his\nliberty springing as it does from Religion, hand in hand with morality,\nis a double-faced divinity. One never can, according to such a\nconception of life, grasp liberty without law, or enjoy a right without\nsatisfying the corresponding duty.\n\nPassing from religion to law, Vico in his objective understanding of\nhistory rejects a justice that should consist in measuring everything,\nfor says he, first this would not be the philosophy but the mathematics\nof law; then it is the duty of men to share the common goods in such\na way as to preserve the differences required by the differences of\ndeserts, and thus to maintain that which is the only true equality\nof men. The natural law, according to him, was born at first under\nthe form of just desires, just violences; then it took the form of\nmoral fables; ultimately it was asserted in all its rationality and\ngenerosity. Away goes with this the abstract and anti-historic notion\nof an eternal and natural law, superior to positive laws. Vico goes\non bowing to the _jus naturale philosophorum_ but instead of putting\nit high above history, he looks for it exclusively where it can be\nfound\u2014that is to say in history, making it thus historical.\n\nAfter accepting Plato\u2019s idea of an eternal Republic, Vico breaks it\nto pieces to come out with a quite different conception of his own.\nThe only really eternal Republic is the eternal process of history\nin all the variety and succession of its modes of realisation, from\nthe man-brute down to Plato. Every single truth has its practical\nmanifestation, its practical consequences; to think in this or that way\nimplies living and acting in this or that way. The divorce of theory\nand practice resulting from the difficulties that arose a century\nbefore between scientific men and their churches is here absolutely\nannulled.\n\nVico calls men to realise that in the human world of history, the\nonly one real to man, since it is the work of man as Nature is the\nwork of God, thought and action go hand in hand. Theories bring\ninevitably a modification of practical life. Man does not exist, at\nleast not to our knowledge, as an individual devoid of a social and\ntherefore historical frame. Art is the moment in which man moves in a\nself-centred world, abstracting from the universal, and is therefore\nthe subjective moment of liberty, the moment of intuition. Religion\nis the moment in which man stands full of awe in front of the world\nwhich is his not-self, abstracting from the individual he is, and is\ntherefore the objective moment of Law, the one link from the intuitive\nto the rational realisation of life as morality and, therefore,\nsociety. History, however, never shows the one apart from the other,\nas nature never shows one of two correlative terms absolutely apart\nfrom the other. Light or darkness may be prevalent, both are always\nthere. Liberty and law have alternately held their sway over our\nmodern, that is to say Christian world, and their synthesis may now\nbe called into being by the grandsons of Vico. His theories could not\nbe understood by the general public before practical life had shown\nthe soundness of his criticism of the theories that were fostering the\nabstract individualism and liberty against which Fascism is reacting;\nand reacting through not a retrograde process, but through a forward\nmovement which shall enforce liberty as the correlative term of law,\nand allow religion to discharge its function as the essential basis of\nman\u2019s spiritual life and not as an instrument of politics.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nILLUMINISM IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE\n\n\nThe characteristic that distinguishes English Illuminism is the\nreasonable adaptation of its theories to practical circumstances; this\nis best illustrated in the greatest man it has produced. Locke was for\nthe preservation of faith in Revelation and tried to make it agree with\nreason. It was as impossible for him as for Thomas Aquinas to think\nthat God\u2019s world should mean anything in contradiction with the natural\nlight He has granted to man. He sees in the Scriptures the revelation\nof truths which would have been out of reach of man\u2019s natural powers,\nlimited as they were to sense knowledge. Such a view was characteristic\nof the fair-mindedness of the practical and political man, but it held\na snare in the sanction thus granted to the most unphilosophical and\nunhistorical notion of Deism and natural religion. The fact is that\nthe most energetic champion of Subjectivism after Descartes could not\nrealise at all the religious position of man towards the Divinity which\nis assertive of objectivism. His ethics take human felicity as the\nhigher aim of theoretical and practical activity, which is not original\nat all, but has the merit of being quite consistent with his subjective\nassertions. In his contribution to pedagogy the commonsense of the\npractical man comes to temper the theoretical individualism which\ninspired him and he thus keeps generally on a level above the theory\nafterwards formulated by Rousseau. But nowhere does this inconsistency\nof his practical application with his main system appear as clearly as\nin his work on the State.\n\nWilliam of Orange stands to Locke as Cromwell does to Hobbes, not\nthat the king can be compared to the dictator, but his reign beheld\nthe inauguration of the political system which is the greatest gift\nof England to mankind; and this practical manifestation of the\npolitical genius of that country shows by its coincidence with its\ngreatest theoretical contribution to philosophy how little practice\nand theory are severed in actual life, that is to say in history. Yet\nLocke was enforcing the distinction with all his might to avoid the\ninconsistency already noticed between the theoretical and practical\naspects of his work. As Hobbes had done before him in England, and\nGrotius in Holland, he saw the basis of the State in a contract, but\nhe was the first (although Algernon Sydney had prepared public opinion\nfor such an idea) to assert that the collective will was embodied not\nin any single person, but in the majority of the people. There he was\nperfectly consistent with his gnoseology, the multiplicity of the data\nof sense knowledge destroyed the unity of the metaphysical conception.\nOnly legislation, however, fell to the share of the majority; the\nexecutive and foreign policy were to be entrusted to hereditary\nmonarchs. The exigencies of the new notions of liberty and equality of\nman were tempered by the practical necessity of insuring the continuity\nand unity of national development, which was the last assertion of\nhistorical necessities. Hence politics went on gradually losing touch\nwith historical consciousness.\n\nYet the necessity under which Locke and the best thinkers of English\nIlluminism were of tempering their theories through practical\nconsiderations was symptomatic of the fundamental weakness of the\nwhole system. Theories springing from a synthetic conception of life\ndo not want readjusting to practical life, do not want a period of\nassimilation under their theoretical form and another of elaboration\ninto practical systems. The best example of this is the simultaneous\nproduction of Gentile\u2019s most important theoretical work known to the\nEnglish-speaking scholars as the _Pure Act_ and of its practical\noffspring the _Fondamenti della Filosofia del Diritto_, both of 1916,\nfollowed at five years\u2019 distance by their political application by the\nFascists who had, so to speak, no direct knowledge of such works; to\nsay nothing of his pedagogy, the application of which the author has\nhad the opportunity of carrying out with her own pupils. But then such\ntheories are conceived without abstracting one minute from practical\nlife, and their basis is history and society as they are in real life.\nOf Fascism the same may be said; its idealism does not prevent it from\nbeing the most thoroughly practical and realistic of movements.\n\nThe philosophy of the seventeenth century had, however, made this\nconsistency of theory and practice an obviously unrealisable chimera\nfor the men of the eighteenth century, and whilst French rationalism\nbrought people to think of rational theories as capable of radically\nreforming society, English empiricism held that ideas may work very\nwell in theory and very badly in practice. Such a distinction was the\nsource of great difficulties. If thought and action were the terms of\nan irreductible dualism it was natural to say\n\n  Meliora video; deteriora sequor.\n\nIndeed, the moral imperative of Kant could not be reached on such\nground and in the literature and philosophy of the eighteenth century\nmoral treatises and dissertations take such a place that there is no\ndoubt as to the men of the period realising the difficulties of the\nproblem. They had separated religion from philosophy, religion from law\nand politics, and as they had the _jus naturale_ they must have natural\nmorals. A sense of right and wrong due to the natural light granted to\nman by God was to be found in Scholasticism as the natural tendency\nto sociability already mentioned. It could, in fact, be traced to the\nStoic school and even farther back. But this did not make things easier\nto the people who held positive religions to be useless, whilst on\nthe other hand they were ready to admit their value as establishments\nproviding for the moral care of the lower classes. In their abstention\nfrom history, the only use of churches they could see was to curb the\negoistical tendencies of man in the classes which were denied the\nenlightenment that could provide educated people with principles of\ndiscrimination between right and wrong. They could not realise that\nthis function of the churches is merely a consequence of the position\nof the believer towards his divinity, that such a position brings man\nto realise what is to him not-self, thereby giving to the moral law the\nobjectivity which alone can free it from the constant alteration of\nselfish motives, and bestow the stability necessary to its efficiency.\n\nA natural sense of right and wrong was acknowledged in order to\nfind in Man himself an explanation of his moral life. This original\npredisposition, that was to ensure autonomy to man\u2019s higher life\nhaving been admitted, the psychological mentality of the time did not\nhesitate to make it a matter of psychology to determine which was\nthe organ of this natural function of man. Whilst such researches\nproceeded, Cumberland having already illustrated the Ciceronian\ndoctrine of the _lex naturae_ as the natural reaction of altruistic\ntendencies against the selfish motives of Hobbes\u2019s theory, the Earl\nof Shaftesbury, a friend of Locke, contributed the best of all these\ntheories. He claimed the autonomy of morals, freeing it no less from\nphysiological than from theological fetters. For the intrinsic value\nof morals is equally destroyed whether you make good deeds dependent\nof the fear of punishment and hope of reward or on the mechanism of\nnature. Goodness, righteousness, and virtue are real of themselves, a\nreality; they can be conceived and understood; they cannot be inferred\nfrom anything else. Why he did not work out so original a notion is\neasily understood; the philosophy of his time afforded him little\nmore than psychology, and his personal gifts and breeding fitted him\nrather for \u00e6sthetics than for so arduous a task; hence it was perfectly\nnatural that his idea should have developed into a real eudemonism.\nThe nature of virtue is to him harmony, he thus blends the conclusions\nof materialism and of the doctrine which upheld the social instinct\nof man; the supremacy was to be ascribed to the egoistic motives by\nthe school of Hobbes, to the sense of altruism by the others. To\nShaftesbury each of these schools held half of the truth and only\nthe combination of both tendencies could produce in their harmony\nreal morality. Neither lax nor ascetic morals must result from the\nharmonious combination of the two opposites. Such a theory implies the\nperfection of the individual as the ultimate end of all intellectual\nlife; it throws light on the nobler side of Illuminism, and if it is\nnot theoretically sound it is the blending of all that was best in a\nmovement that was generous in its optimism.\n\nThe variety of the grounds which were ascribed to morality is\nsufficient to betray the original flaw of such philosophy. Even Lord\nShaftesbury had been unfaithful to Locke, mainly owing to his own\nstrong sense of the \u00e6sthetic, but also owing to the unsuitability of\nthe great philosopher\u2019s doctrine, as it was understood then, as a basis\nfor a theory of ethics. Thus Utilitarianism came into being. \u201cThe best\nfor the greatest number,\u201d was to remain as the ideal or ideology of\nIlluminism; and the best in question became more and more the material\nbest, and less and less the moral best. After the natural sense of\nsociability which had taken the place of the will of God at the basis\nof the state, after the natural sense of right and wrong which had been\nelaborated as a substitute for the Decalogue, very little was left\nof the _tabula rasa_ idea of man\u2019s soul upheld by Locke. All these\nnatural senses were anterior to experience and when natural religion\nwas added to them it was understood that all these innate faculties\nwere constitutive of rationalness in practical life; and Nature was\ngradually opposed to history as rational to irrational.\n\nThis natural religiousness had had its first English assertor in\nHerbert of Cherbury. To him man\u2019s soul is far from being _tabula rasa_;\nit is a book that opens naturally and displays its hidden treasure.\nAnd John Toland, in his efforts to retrieve free thinking from the\ninterference of the State, determines the limitation of the state\u2019s\njurisdiction, to which the citizen\u2019s _actions_ must be subject but\nnever his _opinions_; whilst he limited his request for tolerance for\nthe benefit of that class of men whose social position enabled them to\nafford a sufficient culture to make a harmless use of such liberty.\nThen the negativeness of any liberal government was obvious, since in\nToland\u2019s notion of it it became like a simple set of brakes destined to\nact when the machine goes wrong and to keep the serene impossibility of\nan impeccable butler until order and peace are actually broken. Thus\nagain the radical difference between educated and uneducated which had\nbeen fostered by the cultural movement of Humanism and Renaissance,\nassumed a religious and political significance which made the new idea\nof class a greater impediment to the self-making man than that of the\nfeudal hierarchy which had always admitted the admission to knighthood\nof a valorous man whatever his condition. This cautious exclusion of\nthe people from the new intellectual religion was a condemnation; the\nrational cult proved an artificial theory and could have no vitality.\nYet it would be a perversion of facts to present it as due to the\npersonal feeling of Toland or any other man. It was the consequence\nboth of the predominance of Rational Reality in the systems then in\nhonour, and of the traditional Humanism according to which there was\nthe same difference between a scholar and a non-scholar as there had\nbeen once between the citizen and the non-citizen of the old pagan\nworld. But the main feature is the anti-historical vision of life\nthat made men incapable of suspecting first the social origin of the\nreligious notions which had flourished from pre-historic time, then the\nimpossibility of introducing social partitions in the life of the Mind.\nOf religion they only saw its practical organisation in the different\nchurches; of the need from which the pre-Christian forms of religion\nhad sprung they had not the slightest suspicion.\n\nThe rough and obscure notion they had of the Middle Ages was too often\nidentified with religion and they had no possibility of realising\nthe part played by the Church to keep the objectivity of a religious\ncreed as a counterpoise to the anarchy-breeding self-assertion of\nman. Christianity had revealed the profound humanity, that is to say\nspirituality, of the world, and Man, feeling himself to be the main\nagent of God in the world, realised his subjective importance. Only God\nhad remained above him\u2014only the notion of God\u2019s presence could enforce\nobjective law. It is not the Decalogue and the Church\u2019s precepts which\nare meant here. It is the recognition, essential to religion, of a\nreality existing besides his own self that compels man to realise such\nobjectivity of law. St. Paul laid an emphatic stress on the fact. But\nthe _caritas sibi_ is that which raises the subject, raises us and\nenlarges our capacity until we are capable of taking in the object,\nall that we are not, the world in short; what modern philosophy calls\nthe not-self. When man does realise this objectivity, this distinction\nof the world from him, his attitude is that of respect not only\ntowards God but towards the world. Thus we have the religiousness,\nthat Fascism is striving to enforce until it will pervade the whole\nof life, practical and theoretical life, since it does not part them.\nThis notion of religiousness, however, is ultra-modern, and could not\nhave been conceived in pre-Kantian days, in pre-Hegelian, pre-Gentilian\ndays. It is not medi\u00e6val by any means, and Illuminism is one of the\nstages through which Mind has had to pass, to realise a subject capable\nof taking in the object without going back to Pagan objectivism.\nFor this objective world must at all cost be such through subjective\nobjectivity. If it is to remain a Christian world in its very\nobjectivity it must remain a human world, the world of man, the world\nof the subject whose religious recognition of his not-self is a supreme\nself-assertion.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBefore the end of the century Reason fell from her enthroned glory,\nand sentiment was glorified as the purest activity of man\u2019s soul. So\nthat the century of light ended by raising the less rational motives\nof man\u2019s life to semi-divine honours. This reaction was due to the\nunilateral dogmatism assumed by philosophy in France owing to the\npolitical circumstances of the country.\n\nWith a democratic sense that is partly due to the democratic origin of\nthe French monarchy, which to be absolute, had to rest on the support\nof the people, the thinkers of France did not dream of keeping their\nconclusions to themselves. What they considered true should be public.\nPerhaps, in their feeling that it is the duty of the man of science\nto communicate to the people the result of his studies, they hid the\nmost beautiful motive of the whole century\u2014one that is not brought\nout by the historians of philosophy\u2014the imperative exigency of Truth\nthat impels divulgation. It is frequently remarked that they were the\nreal champions of Illuminism inasmuch as they claimed the right of the\npeople to be enlightened; the idea of Truth which prompted such a claim\nis the loftiest part of their contribution to philosophy.\n\nThe French mathematical mentality, after having exported Descartes,\nhad imported Newton, and as Hobbes and, before him, Bacon, had come to\nFrance to find the yeast they needed to develop their own theories, so\nnow men like Voltaire and Rousseau made their leaven out of Locke\u2019s\nand Hume\u2019s doctrines and studied the political institutions of\nEngland. In France, from Montaigne, from Pascal, men had learned the\ncautious prudence, and the self-dedication to the object of faith that\nare nearly antithetic and usually never appear together Montaigne\u2019s\ninfluence is due to the fact that he reflects the state of mind of\nall the western world, tired of religious struggles and the emphatic\nexpressions of dogmatism on all sides; it was due also to his charming\nstyle and the purity of his French mind. So French is he, so much a man\nof the West, that his charm is felt alike by French and Anglo-Saxon\nminds. One cannot resist him. In his analytic scepticism he is so\nlogically methodic, that his style is like the colour of a piece of\nantique bronze, inviting the onlooker to touch it whilst its lines,\nits lights and shadows reveal the powerful mind of the sculptor.\nMontaigne through his very respect for the Church helped to ruin the\nreligious spirit of his countrymen, and the genius of Pascal could not\nhave made up for it, even if its mysticism and its repugnance for the\n_Moi haissable_ had not been tinged as they were by the self-assertive\nspirit of his time. Both mysticism and scepticism take their practical\nform in Pierre Bayle.\n\nFew men ever enjoyed the gift of sympathy with which he was endowed\nbecause few men are so superlatively sincere. He does not renounce\nreligion, he is indeed quite a religious man, but his religion\nis negative on account of his mysticism as a believer and of his\nscepticism as a scientist. To him the Thomist and Lockian point of\nview of the super-rationality of the Revelation is an illusion.\nIn perfect sincerity he could say _credo quia absurdum_, and like\nTertullian proclaim definitely the divorce of science from religion, of\nrationality from irrationality.\n\nHis next move was to divorce morality from religion. Men could be\nexcellent in Pagan times and they can be wicked in Christian times, yet\nChristianity is superior to Paganism; obviously religious opinions are\nindependent of the morality of men.\n\nHe then passed to politics. His idea of religion was far too high to\nallow him to consider it as an auxiliary of the state\u2019s police as\nEnglish theorists had often done, and since it had nothing to do with\nmorals the Church could have nothing to do with man as a citizen. This\nevidently made not only for tolerance, but for indifference on the part\nof the state in all religious matters.\n\nExpelled from science, morality, and politics, religion was thus\nas good as expelled from life by a mystic simply because he had\nthe sincerity and coherency to be practically consistent with the\ntheoretical ground of the philosophy of the time.\n\nVoltaire overshadows the century as Louis XIV had done the preceding\none. His greatness does not depend on his contribution to philosophy,\nbut on his immense efficiency as a propagandist of the conclusions\nreached by philosophy. Like all the great and best men of Illuminism he\nwas absorbed in the moral and religious problem and had most obviously\nassimilated the best English theories. Less sincere than Bayle, he took\nup his sceptical conclusions, without, however, sharing his mysticism,\nand in the prose of the greatest French writer of the century, he\nset to work to popularise the destructive criticisms of all dogmas.\nVoltaire may have been convinced that dogmas were harmful, but as he\ndid not bring forward anything to put in their stead his influence\nwas negative. What it would have been without the constant recall to\npresent experience of English empiricism cannot be gauged; as it was,\npresent experience was rather an incentive to dissolve and destroy the\nwhole social order than to build; and towards past experiences there\ncould be no recall whatsoever, or rather there was only one and an\noriginal one, but it could not be heard.\n\nTo Voltaire history offered no direct lesson. His belief in the\nsupremacy of reason could only bring him to despise the incoherency of\nhistorical facts through which very often the rationality of history\ndisplays itself. His clearness of sight limited his outlook to the\npresent, and this focussing of life was an abstraction which prevented\nhim from realising the historical forces at play in the political and\nsocial circumstances of his country. His religiousness is strongly\ntinged with utilitarianism, as he held, like many Englishmen had\ndone, that the purpose of Churches was to act as moral check to the\nlower class. All these fathers of Liberalism and Radicalism are more\naristocrats than democrats. Their worship of culture and reason makes\nfor political tyranny and a social system of caste as distinct as\nthat of the Indians. Hence it evoked a reaction, and this found its\nspokesman in Jean Jacques Rousseau. People were tired of dry reason and\nits negativeness, they felt parched and longed for affirmative works;\nhe came out, a man of genius, devoid of the mathematical and classical\ngrounding of the others; entirely led by feelings and, alternately, by\nthe most generous and lowest impulses he was a democrat.\n\nUntil Rousseau appeared the writers on political matters had been\neither followers of the _jus naturalism_ or of the constitutionalist\nschools.\n\nIn Rousseau two streams mingle their waters, for he is an artist as\nwell as the most original thinker France had after Bayle. As an artist\nhe is the spokesman of his generation, and it is as such that his\ncontemporaries took to him as they did in spite of his disreputable\npersonal life. As a thinker, although the statement may sound very\ndaring, he ought to share with Berkeley and Hume the honour of being\nconsidered as one who made the way for Kant. His were mere intuitions;\nthey could not be more as he had no scientific or philosophic training.\nBut as Professor Saitta has pointed out, his reaction against\nrationalism transcends very much what was grasped by most of his\nreaders and even sometimes by recent critics. His passionate claim for\nthe important part played by sentiment in the life of man and by all\nirrational forces, original though it is, is the impulsive reaction\nof an artist, whereas by the time he wrote, Italy had already had for\nsome quarter of a century the works of a man who had claimed, with\na speculative genius far superior to his, the acknowledgment of all\nthe different activities of mind. And Giambattista Vico had been a\njurist and an historian as well as a philosopher. So that his notion\nof Man was capable of taking in, not only his rational activity, or\nhis sense relation to the exterior world, or his sentimental life,\nor his religious position, as rationalism, empiricism, sensism and\nmysticism had respectively done; but the whole range of man\u2019s spiritual\nmanifestations. Therefore, is it that Rousseau\u2019s greatest intuitions\nare those that could not affect Italy in a speculative way. The man who\nwas to pick them up was a German whose genius had all the robustness\nof his country at that stage, coming as it was to the fore after having\nfed on the intellectual production of Italy, France and England.\n\nWhat affected Italian thought most was the weakest part of Rousseau.\nThe idea to which he owed his immediate fame is that nature made man\nhappy and good, but that society had made him bad and unhappy. He was\nthereby contradicting rationalism and empiricism, he was flinging\nhis glove in the face of all Illuminism. And he could do it not on\nphilosophical ground, but merely calling upon life to justify his\nassertion. That age of light was an age of corruption and misery. The\nlack of religion had brought in its trail the lack of seriousness; the\nabstract subjectivism of a century had made of each man a self-centred\nworld. Liberty was, so to speak, constantly cried for out of tune since\nit could not be accompanied by the assertion of law. For all that the\nJus-naturalists and Constitutionalists had admitted the liberty of men\nto make a contract and give themselves the form of government which\nsuited them best; they had denied the citizens the liberty of declaring\nsuch contract lapsed when it had ceased to satisfy them. As this was\ndue to their training in a philosophy that considered the world as\na machine, Rousseau had no reason to follow them nor to see in the\nstate a mechanism subject to laws as inalterable as those of nature.\nTherefore he realised the real essence of liberty as inalienable. It\ncould be transferred, not alienated. Strong in this sense of liberty\nMan must fight all the unnatural edifice of society which, according to\nhim, is the cause of all immorality through the inequalities of men it\nbegets.\n\nOnce men accepted the notion of Rousseau\u2014that Nature had made man\ngood and society had made him bad\u2014it became not only permissible but\nmorally right to destroy the order of things which had been evolved by\nsociety and to invest man, every single man, with the consciousness of\nhis sovereignty. Of the two tendencies which have been compared to two\nstreams, one was the naturalistic individualism rooted in the thoughts\nof his contemporaries and which he expressed merely as an artist,\nas the greatest artist of the time; the other was the idealistic\nuniversalism which was personal to him as a thinker, but that was bound\nto remain a source of fleeting intuitions on account of his incapacity\nto raise it to speculative consciousness. He roused a powerful echo\nwhere men like Voltaire and the Encyclop\u00e6dists failed to command\nattention; and even his art of writing could not have provided him with\nso great a fascination if most of the ideas and feelings he expressed\nhad not been a living reality throbbing in the hearts of his readers,\neven of the lowest classes. It was the lowest side of his doctrines\nthat spread amongst the people, the part which appealed to envy and\nhatred, two very powerful levers indeed, but of which Rousseau might\nnot have chosen to make use had he been able to choose. His insistence\non the distinction between the will of all and the general will tells\neloquently of the intuition he had of transcendental self and of the\nethic essence of the state; but all this comes to nought on account of\nhis lacking a theoretical ground for such a notion, and he is obliged\nto fall back on the intellectual stock of his time; in spite of his\ngenius, in spite of all sentimental intuition of a universal will, he\nis thrown back on a will which is merely the sum, the numerical sum,\nof the single wills. Thus it is that he gave us the system which\nenthrones quantity while it aims at quality.\n\nHis first principle that men are made all alike by Nature, happy and\ngood, is, as most of the philosophy against which he was the first\nto react with the power of genius, perfectly anti-historical and,\ntherefore, abstract. When it had received at the hands of Kant and\nHegel a systematic and speculative treatment this principle was bound\nto have as necessary consequences Socialism and Communism. If the\nnature of man, thus hypothetically accepted, is as abstract and as\nunreal as an algebraical axiom, it was bound to lead to political and\neconomic hypothesis just as abstract and as unreal. Since history\nshows us in the class struggles and individual competitions the main\nspring of progress, the condition _sine qua non_ of all social life,\nit is impossible even to dream of the elimination of such class and\nindividual differences. Life would cease to be dynamic, cease to be\na moving process, it would be static, everything being brought to a\nstandstill, which is death.\n\nTo look at real life, to turn away from atomistic individualism towards\na subjectivism capable of comprehending all the objective world in\norder to realise finally what should be the Christian world which must\nbe _Liberty and Law_, another century and a half was needed. Now we\ncan look back to Rousseau and detect in him the obscure foreshadowing\nof the school of thought which was to redeem in the face of reason the\nirrational activities of Mind, not as the handmaids of reason but in\ntheir full autonomy and necessity. Mind is no longer pure reason, and\nphilosophy does not exclude but imply religion and art, the two moments\nof law and liberty, although such distinction of activities does not\ndestroy the vital unity of man\u2019s conscience. Mankind is no longer the\narithmetical sum of X beings reduced to the same type and value, it\ntranscends the individual and can be realised as well in the smaller\ncell of society which is the family as in the greater cell which is the\ncountry. Consequently, for the abstract man of Rousseau a Man can be\nnow substituted who never is Man as Man, but Man in his full reality\nas son, as brother, as husband, as father, as worker, as citizen, as\nbeliever, as artist.\n\nTo make this possible, however, a long process was required, the first\nstage being Rousseau and the application of his theories even in their\nnegativity. For to reach Fascism, which really puts men on the same\nlevel, it was necessary to break through class distinctions as they\nexisted then, that is to say as static partitions meant to stay as they\nwere. It was necessary so that power should slip from the hands of\npeople, who considered it as their natural birthright, into the hands\nof those who are actually fit to hold it. Again such a revolution was\nnecessary so that a day should come in which neither the aristocracy\nnor the proletariat could think of eliminating politically each other.\n\nAnd, as the philosophy of Italy proclaims, ethical reality is neither\nof the subject in itself, nor of the object, but of their actual\nrelation; so Fascism does not allow class elimination but protects\nclass competition as the best means of raising the spiritual and\neconomical standard of the nation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN ITALY\n\n\nIt is not surprising that German philosophy found an adoptive country\nin Italy. Most of the speculative notions of Kant were formulated\nfourteen years before Kant was born in Vico\u2019s _De Antiquissima Italorum\nSapientia_, and Hegel\u2019s most original conception, forty-five years\nbefore Stuttgart had the honour of producing him, was acted upon in the\n_Scienza Nova_. Even if Vico had never been realised in his totality,\npeople in Italy knew more or less that such ideas as those of the\nGerman philosophers were in the air and found them easier in Kant than\nin Vico since the former had brought them to systematic cogency. Vico,\nindependent of any knowledge of Leibniz\u2019s theories, had come to share\nseveral of his ideas merely because they faced the same problems and\nboth had practical and synthetic speculative minds. Also Vico with\nhis hostility for rationalism, his sympathy for empiricism and his\ncriticism of both found himself very nearly in what was to be Kant\u2019s\nposition. His preparation, which was more legal and historical and\narch\u00e6ological than Kant\u2019s, closed the way to a clear and precise view;\nbut it was superior in one sense inasmuch as that preparation provided\nhim with a richer, a fuller view of reality, thus allowing him to\nforeshadow Hegel as well as Kant.\n\nThe greatest man who reacted against Rationalism and Empiricism in\npolitics as factors of a sterilising Utilitarianism, reducing man to\nthe most abject egoism, Mazzini, is an intuitive genius like Rousseau\nand like him a son of the eighteenth century, rising above his\ngeneration. But whilst the one showed little or no sense of history the\nother saw it as it really is, animated by ideas and created by the will\nof men. One writer had had a very great influence on the great Genoese,\nwho never knew even as much as his name, Vincenzo Cuoco. He was what\nmight be called a writer of political pedagogy, as the problems he\nfaced are always practical and usually political. The education\nof which he was an ardent apostle was the civic education of the\ninhabitants of Italy; and like all men whose aim is practical he sets\nhis ideal in life and not in science. He is the pedagogue of the first\ndawn of Italy\u2019s national consciousness at the time of Napoleon. Born\nin 1770 in the Molise he died in Naples in 1823. Among the Neapolitan\nJacobins he stood as an exception in the lack of enthusiasm with which\nhe viewed the French Revolution. He had assimilated all the ideas of\nthe French writers, but he was a student of all social, political and\neconomical problems; so that it is no wonder that he should have come,\nthrough the influence of F. M. Pagano, to respect Vico and look askance\nat the new systems. His fundamental principle was that human reality is\nhistorical reality, that is to say the reality which is not, but for\never becomes, and goes on becoming and developing not through extrinsic\ncauses, but through its own activity, intrinsic and autonomous; that\nsuch activity transcends the single activities and their historical\ndetermination; its source is identified by him as Divine Providence.\nSuch was the principle from which moved all Vico\u2019s philosophy, and\nthough Cuoco could not even suspect the speculative value of it, he\nrealised it practically, and it was to him a luminous beacon, more than\nsufficient to enable him to take his bearings in the political world\nand make out the right way to rid Italy of her troubles.\n\nThus he could not be satisfied with a French Constitution because Vico\nhad taught that \u201cgovernments must be drawn in conformity with the\nnature of the men who are to be governed....\u201d The French Revolution\nseemed to him drawn for ideal men who did not exist. According to\nhim a constitution must conform to the nature of the people and be\nproduced by the people, through the few men who are fit to interpret\nits historical will and realise its particular requirements. Although\nMussolini may not have read Cuoco\u2019s articles it is greatly to his\npraise that he should so perfectly conform to the ideas of this\nfirst follower of Vico. Not that this fact is considered here as a\ncoincidence\u2014if Mussolini is the genius of Italy which he is hailed\nto be, it is but natural that he should realise in its practical\napplication a theory which is so perfectly Italian. A constitution\ncannot be \u201cgood for every nation.\u201d If it is supposed to be, it means\nit is good for nobody. Besides it must not be drawn like an abstract\ntheory established once for all according to a philosophical notion of\nwhat is supposed to be the nature of man, and as such eternal; it is\nbound to be always temporary and historically determined, according to\nthe vices and qualities, according to the ways and the history of the\npeople.\n\nIn this brief exposition of what were Vincenzo Cuoco\u2019s most important\nideas on politics, we meet constantly with sentences that might be met\nfrom the pen or on the lips of Mussolini. Censure can do little to\nreform the moral and political life of man. Feasts and premiums are\nbetter means; and it is more likely that governments will improve the\ncountry by pulling the people to the good rather than by pushing them\naway from the bad. This is pure Fascism. The government must not act\nas a brake, but rather as a propeller or a helm. Public virtue must be\nnursed, not by diminishing the avidity of the lower classes, but by\nshowing them the way to satisfy it. _The love of work_ is the one means\nof regenerating the lower classes. A good government must, therefore,\ndestroy the callings that are unproductive; and to accomplish this\nthe best way is to make it impossible for people to get as much money\nout of them as out of the productive callings. \u201cWork,\u201d writes Cuoco,\njust as a Fascist minister might, \u201cwill make us independent of the\nnations upon which we depend.\u201d The Love of Man for his country must\nspring from self respect; and this, indeed, is as far as one could go\nmore than a hundred years ago towards the identification of state and\ncitizen, which is the basis of Fascism, and has been formulated in\nits speculative form by Giovanni Gentile in 1916. If a nation was to\nbe created out of the patchwork Italy presented on the map it could\nonly be through the education of the people, for the unification could\nonly be attained by awakening national consciousness in the single\nconsciences. Cuoco called this the formation of an Italian public\nspirit.\n\nWhen this follower of Vico in 1802 reached Milan, capital of the\nCisalpine Republic, Melzi realised his value and entrusted him with\nthe foundation and direction of the first _Giornale d\u2019Italia_. Four\narticles written in 1804 are probably those read and meditated upon by\nMazzini and are of such a quality that they could be written to-day.\nTo the men who did not see the point in so much zeal for the formation\nof public spirit he answers by a most coherent demonstration that\npolitical reality is spiritual reality. The spiritual building up of\nthe citizen is the real conquest of political autonomy. To achieve\nsuch a task it was necessary to foster the love of agriculture, and of\nthe militia\u2014compare Mussolini\u2014and to replace self-love and personal\nvanity with the love of the country and national pride. The \u201cCity\u201d to\nCuoco is not one thing and the citizens another, the prosperity of the\nformer depends on the moral and practical efficiency of the latter.\nHe was full of contempt for the dreamers who thought that everything\nmay be expected from the laws. But the men who roused him to real\npassion were those who argued that the Army, the navy, commerce,\nwere cares that should be left to the great nations, to England and\nFrance for instance. To this he objected that those countries had been\nsmall, smaller than the Italian states, and had grown through the\nsteadiness and efficiency of their national will. Such efficiency and\nsteadiness of national will he called \u201cpublic spirit.\u201d The regions\nwhose inhabitants did not think of being or becoming a great country,\nwould never be nations. For the small states there was one law; either\nto become great or perish. It may be timely to observe that this\ndependence of a country\u2019s greatness on the conscience and the will of\nits citizens was asserted by Mussolini when he was still the head of\nthe Socialist party in Forli in 1911.\n\nAgain in 1804, reviewing in his _Giornale d\u2019Italia_ a philosophical\nwork, Cuoco expresses the desire to see philosophy flourishing in\nItaly, for the development of speculative thought was in close\nrelation with the political state of society, and it was important\nthat a nation should not be theoretically sterile. \u201cIt is a long time\nsince we received it,\u201d he writes, \u201cfirst from France with the works\nof Descartes, then from England with those of Locke. The periods of\npolitical greatness of each nation always coincide with those of its\nphilosophical greatness. The first strength is Mind; weak is the arm of\nthose who lack it or think they do.\u201d Doubtless this is pointing the way\nto Gentile\u2019s affirmation of the impossibility of having the theoretical\nand practical activities of mind separate from each other just as the\nlast quotation was pointing to Mussolini\u2019s policy of \u201cheroicising\u201d the\npeople of his country through giving them an heroic will and a national\nconscience.\n\nNo wonder that Mazzini should have realised what Rousseau could never\nsee. The ethical nature of what goes under the name of \u201cNation\u201d is a\nMazzinian concept. When Hegel speculatively proclaimed this it had been\nalready intuitively conceived, artistically expressed and religiously\nobserved by the men to whom Mazzini\u2019s ardent faith was like an electric\ncurrent. The Mazzinian articles of faith were few, and had never been\ntheoretically worked out. This helped their adoption by people who\nwould never have grasped the import of a huge system. Whilst Rosmini\nand Gioberti were read by the few, Mazzini was on the lips and throbbed\nin the hearts of the many, so that the war he waged against materialism\nand individualism was effective. His mystic feeling spreads in young\nhearts as easily now as it did then. Lads take to sacrifice far more\neasily than men of a more mature age and Mazzini\u2019s declarations all\nproclaimed self-sacrifice, self-effacement, even his idea of liberty.\n\nAt the very time in which the Anglo-French idea of political reality\nwas introduced in Italy, to rouse the country once more into life with\nthe magic word liberty, this young man, a poet, an inspired prophet,\nwas ready with a new meaning for that word. According to Mazzini the\nindividual is merely the representation we have of our own self when\nwe look at it as one amongst many and see it limited to the short\nspan of time between the birth and the death of its body, whereas the\nself which can conceive of liberty, and therefore realise it, is the\nself everyone of us feels when in the silent recess of Mind we have\na right to claim, a feeling to express, an intuition to cast into\nsound or colour, and a faith through which we link ourselves to the\npolitical, family, artistic and religious reality that has given us the\nconsciousness of such right or aroused in us such family, artistic, or\nreligious sense. To him political liberty could only mean for Italians\nthe liberty of shaking off foreign rule and creating the nation. It was\nnot and could not be the liberty to attend one\u2019s private affairs as\none wished, for this last meaning of the word had been elaborated in\nhis country through Humanism and the Renaissance, and it was not only\nobsolete, but was the cause of Italy\u2019s corruption and decay.\n\nThe idea of empirical and transcendental self, implicit in this\nconception of liberty, came to produce the second article of faith\nin the Mazzinian doctrine. If man were to try creating a new natural\nkingdom and add it to the animal, vegetable and mineral offered to us\nby Nature, his attempt would be a vain endeavour. But political reality\ndoes not belong to the world of Nature but to the world of Mind, in\nwhich man is a Creator, and where nothing is really impossible to him\nthat believeth. This most Christian view of the point frees the nation\nfrom natural contingencies and frees the citizens besides from the\nlazy excuse that man must accept the political and economic position\nof his country as determined by Nature. Thereby it forbids any idea of\nits being static. No one can find at his birth his nation ready-made\nfor him; everyone must work to the best of his moral, intellectual,\nand bodily power to create it; since the moment the citizens cease to\nwork at this, their political task, the country starts ceasing to be\na nation and becomes a region whilst the citizens become inhabitants.\nThe nation is not a geographical unit, it is not even history\nempirically understood, but it is history as far as history is process,\ndevelopment, programme, mission and sacrifice; in a word, human life.\n\nIn Mazzini\u2019s insistency on the point one detects the desire to react\nagainst the negative side of the mentality which has been traced as a\nconsequence of Humanism. The Italians had identified themselves with\nancient Rome, and this had brought them to think of their national\nglory and history as a ready-made affair. In their country they saw\nthe Temple of the past, and exploited their ruins morally as well\nas financially. Whilst the other countries of the western world had\nbeen fighting and labouring, for the conquest of their political\nand financial status, Italy had sat on her past glories and proudly\nwrapping herself in Cicero\u2019s or C\u00e6sar\u2019s toga had taken tips from the\nwhole world. Mazzini had grasped enough of Vico\u2019s notion of man as\ncreator of the historical world to bring to the fore, in the average\nman\u2019s mind, the idea that was the import of all the historical\nphilosophy of Italy and, therefore, the positive side of his country\u2019s\nhistorical mentality.\n\nNeither Cuoco nor Mazzini were philosophers, their task was, so to\nspeak, to realise philosophy, to introduce other people\u2019s theories\ninto life, and this they did uncommonly well both of them, although\nMazzini played in the Risorgimento so eminent a part that his gigantic\nhistorical figure overshadows that of Cuoco. But Cuoco, through his\n_Giornale d\u2019Italia_ and his subsequent writings had the greatest\ninfluence on the best poets and writers of the period, to begin with\non Foscolo and Manzoni. For the first time since Savonarola\u2019s days\nintellectual life in Italy beheld a spontaneous revival of Catholic\nthinking, and this, strong enough since it counted men as great as\nGioberti, Rosmini and Manzoni, was not due to the initiative of\nthe Church. It was spontaneous, intellectually so, and Vico may be\nconsidered as its forerunner. What was paramount was perhaps the moral\nsystem of Rosmini. He started out to fight Kant\u2019s moral system as unfit\nfor use on account of the subjective ground of the Kantian imperative,\nand meaning to fight it he developed it and found new ground for it.\nThe moral, pedagogic and even pedantic spirit which spread in the\nintellectual classes of Italy during the last century has indeed a\ngood deal in common with the moral movement which had accompanied in\nGermany the development of a national conscience. We have in both cases\na reaction against the foreign ways of the aristocracy\u2014but with a great\ndifference since in Italy the aristocracy had very little of the feudal\ncharacter and was so open to intellectual life that it responded to\nthe call sooner and better than any other class\u2014preluding a reaction\nagainst the atomistic political life of the country. To pass from\nRosmini and Gioberti to Croce and Gentile, the thinkers who herald the\ncoming of Italy as a modern nation, as much was needed as to pass\nfrom Leibniz, living in the days in which German intellectual life and\nnational conscience could be at best the object of a mystical worship,\nto Kant\u2019s time, when Europe realised that there were actually such\nthings as German metaphysics and a German nation.\n\nIn both cases the philosophy has to be, and is, synthetic, for in\nboth cases the exigency that opens life with the pungency of need,\nof deficiency, of negativeness, is the thirst for national assertion\nand foreign recognition. Obviously in both cases also it is the\nassimilation of foreign contributions that has enabled the scholars to\nrealise the negative position of their respective countries.\n\nAfter the unfortunate war of \u201948\u2013\u201949, Gioberti went into exile and\nphilosophy was overtaken according to Prof. G. de Ruggiero by an\ninvincible drowsiness. Drowsy, obscure, unconscious of their own\npositions, are epithets which can be justly bestowed on the thinkers of\nthe time, for eclecticism prevails without the historical culture that\nalone can make it fertile. And of the most eminent philosopher of the\ntime the best that can be said is that he did his best to lull to sleep\nhis countrymen\u2019s newborn consciousness. Among the Positivists, inferior\nfollowers of foreign tendencies, several remain first-rate historians,\nthanks to a few sentences of Vico kept like the seeds in Noah\u2019s\nark, and sufficient to prevent them from falling into a materialist\nmetaphysic which would have been a sterilising curse to the newborn\nnation. Materialism was far more logical and coherent in France when\nthe historians simply excluded the ideologies which were left hovering\nthrough the historical works\u2014for instance, of as good an historian as\nVillari; but this was not unconscious. After the efforts which they had\nmade to get rid of pseudo-idealistic metaphysic they did not want to\nentangle themselves in another metaphysic, were it to be materialist.\nOn the other hand, they did not want, or were not able, to make theirs\nthe position of English positivists. Ardigo, for instance, although he\nis the best Italian thinker that upheld Positivism, cannot be compared\nto a Spencer or a Mill.\n\nBut speculative voices are never silenced, although they may be hushed,\nand the spiritual exigencies which had produced Gioberti and Rosmini\nwere slowly working themselves out in other minds. Neo-Kantianism\ngave birth in Italy to a series of historical studies in the field\nof philosophy, so that it became impossible for any decent professor\nto misrepresent the development of speculative thought as these two\ngreat exponents of Italy\u2019s mind had done. Whilst Neo-Kantians achieve\nlittle theoretically, they do so much historically that one may say\nthat the works of such men as Fiorentino, Tocco, and others prepared\nthe ground for Spaventa and de Sanctis who in their turn have given\nus Croce and Gentile. All read German, English and French, besides\nLatin and Greek; so that we can say that the speculative theories of\nthe whole western world were studied in their schools; and that, like\nthe child who becomes self-conscious as he gradually realises the\nworth and importance of the people surrounding him, Italy has grown to\nspeculative self-consciousness through the close study of universal\nspeculation and of the history of her national political life, national\nart, national literature, national speculative theories, until her\nhistorians came to the idea of history as the co-ordination of all the\ndifferent branches.\n\nBertrando Spaventa taught in the university of Napoli, and, a staunch\nHegelian, he criticised Hegel in the same creative way as Vico had\ncriticised Descartes and Locke. He developed and continued the\nintuition which is at the basis of all Hegelian system as Hegel could\nnot have done, inasmuch as Spaventa realises Hegel\u2019s logic in its\nhistorical position, that is to say as the fulfilment of Descartes\u2019\nclaim. Thinking means causing to the French mind, whilst to Hegel it is\nnot merely causing it is creating. But Gioberti had not only expressed\nthe Hegelian intuition; he had completed it; thinking is creating,\nbut to him proving also is creating. And Spaventa, rich with all the\nhistory of speculative thought, realised Hegel\u2019s logic and prepared it\nto enter life, thanks to Gioberti\u2019s contribution, although Gioberti\nhimself had been far from realising it. The speculative possibilities\nof the Cartesian _Cogito_ are exploited to the full; whereas they\nhad been left aside by Hegel. Vico\u2019s _factum et verum convertuntur_,\npragmatically understood by the Positivists, is here realised as a\nprocess. But, as is the wont of Italian thinkers, the original part of\nhis intuition remains at an intuitive stage and has to wait for the\nspeculative genius of Gentile to work it out and modify it into the\n_fieri et verum convertuntur_ which is the adequate expression of the\nhistorical dialectic.\n\nHegel\u2019s most original and fecund motive was thus nearing its\ntheoretical realisation at the hands of Spaventa, whilst Vico\u2019s\nconception of life was practically illustrated by Francesco de\nSanctis, whose important part in the shaping out of Italy\u2019s present\nmentality cannot be overstated. The process of dissolution of Hegel\u2019s\nand Vico\u2019s theories was accomplished and the passage from dissolution\nto re-elaboration was done by de Sanctis. In his _Storia della\nletteratura Italiana_ the philosophy of mind receives more than a\nperfect illustration, an \u00e6sthetic rendering that makes the most\nabstruse notion of dialectic a tangible object of meditation to the\naverage reader. \u00c6sthetic rendering is here used as excluding anything\nlike theoretic exposition; and such \u00e6sthetic quality is insured by the\ngreat critic\u2019s own gifts as an artist. His reading and philosophic\npreparation are incredible, not to be gauged; they are, however,\nassimilated by him very much in the way in which a great artist\nassimilates his technique and intellectual experience.\n\nDoubtless Michelangelo, moving to sketch the ceiling of the Sistine\nChapel or the last panel of it, is carrying in himself the experience,\nthe artistic experience of eighteen centuries. Yet he must have\nforgotten it all, at least as objective knowledge, to find it in\nhimself flesh of his flesh, marrow of his bones, soul of his soul;\nso that he could move freely as an artist, in all the spontaneity\nand, therefore, liberty of creation. The character of his work is\npersonal, so highly personal that it includes all the determinations\nwhich single out Buonarroti as a man of that land, of that religion\nand even of that particular moment of his religion, of that time, of\nsuch and such temperament and inclination, and singles out the whole of\nhis production as belonging to that particular moment of the Italian\nRenaissance. The greater is the artist\u2019s personality, the better he\ndischarges his twofold function of microcosm and macrocosm of his\nworld. It is an illusion of the nineteenth century to believe that\npersonality in art makes for atomistic individualism. Just as it is an\nabsurd error of the people who judge Mussolini and Fascism to believe\nthat they have grown without roots. They would then be superposed\nto history, superfluous, unnecessary; whereas the great artist and\nthe great politician belong to life, and in fact are historical life\nworking itself out to expression or political realisation.\n\nThe _Storia della letteratura Italiana_, like an immense relief,\nunfurls the development of the life of Mind in Italy from the dawn\nof the Italian mentality right up to the days of the critic. For de\nSanctis, Art is Mind individualising itself through the senses in the\ntransparency of intuition; Art in other words, is life reaching the\nluminosity of form. This blending, this perfectly intimate welding of\nreason and sense, of universal and particular is Art. It is, therefore,\nindividuality, not individuality taken as it is too often\u2014as the\ncontrary of universality, but as its realisation in the particular.\nFor this relation of the universal and particular is constitutive of\nart, which is, therefore, neither individual arbitrariness, nor the\nmere reflection of life in the artist\u2019s fancy, but life itself coming\nthrough its own development to intuitive transparency. Life cannot be a\nmatter of which art would be the form; and religion, politics, science\nas elements of life are not alien to art or indifferent to it. None of\nthis element can exist without art, and history leaves no doubt on the\npoint\u2014each new religion, new political system, new scientific progress\nis not to be parted from the artistic production of the time.\n\nDe Sanctis, like a medical student, follows step by step the corruption\nof Italy, gradually growing with the decay of religious and political\nconsciousness, above all when Humanism, having reached its climax\nin the works of Poliziano, stopped providing a sincere feeling to\nthe scholars who ceased to worship antiquity some fifty years after\nhim. De Sanctis was a man of the Risorgimento he had laboured and\nsuffered for the independence of his country, hoped and despaired of\nthe future greatness of his countrymen. He was aware that in spite of\nMachiavelli, of Vico, of Alfieri, of Cuoco, of Mazzini, the greatest\nnumber of his countrymen had, so to speak, no souls. Knowing as he did\nthat religion was the basis of all relation and the first cause of all\nreal social progress, seeing in it the keystone of man\u2019s recognition\nof the exterior world, he refrained in all his books from attacking\nnot only religion, but the Church as well; although he was a staunch\nanti-clerical in politics until Rome was taken from the Pope. He drew\nsuch a graph of the development of Italy\u2019s mind that from Dante\u2019s\nonwards it shows all the forces of corruption preparing the series of\ninvasions that made of his countrymen\u2019s shame a byword, and the forces\nof reconstruction from Machiavelli onward. To the reading public he\npresented it as a mirror, in the transparency of Art showing the whole\nspiritual life of the people with its political consequences. He bade\nthem realise that corruption had been the cause of foreign rule and\ntyranny, not foreign rule and tyranny the cause of corruption.\n\nThis was new indeed, too new for a generation which had achieved\nthe political independence of the country with the belief that bad\ngovernment and foreign rule were the cause of the people\u2019s corruption.\nNo wonder, therefore, that de Sanctis\u2019 masterpiece, published in 1871,\nshould have been practically laid aside for more than twenty-five years\nawaiting Croce and Gentile to take it up. The public that responded to\ntheir call when it came was exactly the one which de Sanctis would have\nwished to reach. The boys took de Sanctis up, and what is more curious\nthey took him as their idea-provider; inasmuch as the big volumes,\nwhich could not be included in the schools\u2019 syllabus, were turned to in\nthe hour of need, when they had to write essays and found themselves\nshort of ideas. No method of popularising and assimilation could match\nthis, for the ideas thus borrowed by the young had to be exposed,\nproved and illustrated. The school lads and university men who enlisted\nas volunteers in the war, were mostly spiritual sons of de Sanctis, one\nof them being Mussolini, who told the author that he was a worshipper\nof that work. In the same way the idea of Croce and Gentile have spread\neven among people unfit to realise their theoretical import. Never,\nhowever, could they spread like those of de Sanctis, but he is so much\nso completely their spiritual father that most of their speculative\nnotions can be found as intuitions in de Sanctis\u2019 pages. There the boys\nget so familiar with them that when they come to a Gentilian theory,\nand the teacher takes the trouble to introduce to them the fundamental\nintuition, they grasp it at once as a matter of course and wonder why\nthe teacher should think it so difficult to explain, for instance, the\nintimate relation of thought and action, the necessity of religion and\nthe like.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nBENEDETTO CROCE\n\n\nBenedetto Croce\u2019s opposition to Mussolini\u2019s government is so well\nknown that to include him among the precursors of Fascism may seem\nstrange. But here Fascism is considered as the political expression of\nthe intellectual or rather spiritual forces which are bringing Italy\nto the fore and determining the growth of the Italian mind. Hence the\nnecessity of including Croce in this account of the pedigree of the\ntendencies which have been realised in politics by Benito Mussolini.\nThis naturally does not imply that all the ideas acted upon by Fascists\nare to be found in the theories of Croce, but that certain needs of\nItalian minds, more or less consciously expressed during the eighteenth\nand nineteenth centuries, had been formulated and worked out by Croce,\nwho had either found them in de Sanctis or had developed them on lines\nsuggested to him by that great critic.\n\nOne of the points on which this penetrating and far seeing man had most\nemphatically insisted was that the vague idealism which swept over\nsome European artistic centres during the last century was alien to\nthe Italian mind. The assertions that he met with from many quarters\nas to the impossibility of the artist\u2019s realising his ideal was\ntreated by him as exotic nonsense. An ineffable poem is not a poem at\nall, a harmony defying expression is not a harmony at all, a vision\ntranscending colours and lines, shadow and light is not a vision at\nall. Italians had to be reminded of the necessity of being realistic;\ntheir greatness as well as the greatness of ancient Rome had always\nrested upon a sound sense of the relation between means and end. He\ndescribed the Italian genius as a disposition rather to identify the\nend and means than to fit the end to the means. He enforced this\nclaim, not only for artistic creation, but for historical researches\nor theoretical speculation as well. He had evidently realised the\nshort-comings of men such as Gioberti and Rosmini. It was much\nbetter to start on particular problems with an adequate preparation,\nand develop them into speculative theories, than to start with an\nindifferent preparation on vital questions and come to inadequate\nconclusions.\n\nNow if there could be in history such a thing as good luck, the\nfriendship of Croce and Gentile, their flourishing at the same time,\ncould be considered the most wonderful piece of good luck for Italy. By\nluck, however, we usually mean a certain combination of circumstances\nescaping our attention. Moreover, their being contemporaries of\nMussolini, the _one_ man fit to create a political world capable of\nbringing into living reality their most difficult conceptions\u2014very\noften, in fact generally, without knowing anything of their theories\u2014is\na sufficient proof that there is no possibility here of invoking luck\nas an explanation of the concomitance of Croce\u2019s and Gentile\u2019s activity\nwith that of Mussolini. It is much nearer to historical truth to state\nthat Italy has reached one of those stages of her history in which\nshe has always yielded a rich harvest of men of genius, speculative,\npolitical or artistic.\n\nAny and every practical activity, says Croce, implies theoretical\nactivity, since no action can be performed without knowledge. This\nhowever is not to be separated from the action; for the two forms\nof the spirit are distinct, not separate. Thus in any action, while\nthe practical activity is explicit, the theoretical activity which\nis knowledge is implicit; in fact they are _concomitant_. The man\nof thought can no more think than walk without using his will; the\nimportance of the will is just as great for the thinker or the artist\nas it is for the so-called practical man. But it is only through the\nwearing of the Pragmatist\u2019s blinkers that one can be brought to see in\nthe will the root of truth.\n\nA distinction is, however, made by Croce between the knowledge required\nfor a practical act, such as the disposing of a regiment of infantry\nfor a review, and that of the philosopher or the artist. The one\nis an intuition, the other is a conception, and to make the ground\nof a volition you want both, for the combination is _historical_\nknowledge. There, obviously enough, Croce reveals himself a true son of\nMachiavelli, Vico, and de Sanctis. The Florentine secretary had been\nhinting as much when he insisted on the necessity of our knowing the\n_actual truth about things_ (since _human things are always moving_),\nin order to govern _in harmony with the times_.\n\nThis _historical_ knowledge is not an idea that will surprise after all\nthat has been said about the constant tendency of Italy\u2019s best thinkers\nto test the practicability of any concept on the concrete ground of\nhistory. To them, the natural realm of action being history, it was\nmanifest that any knowledge or theory is liable to be acted upon only\nin so far as it is historical; and such knowledge becomes, under the\nname of condition of fact, the ground of Croce\u2019s conception of the\nnecessity and liberty of man\u2019s will.\n\nTo the generally accepted ideas of means and end Croce was to bring a\nmost radical change. First he proceeds to prove that what is known as\nthe end, the purpose, or the aim is not to be distinguished from the\nwill. When I wash my hands my purpose is obviously that I should have\nthem clean; but then it is equally obvious that this means that I want\nthem to be clean. Turning to the means, the washing of my hands in\norder to have them clean, supposes a condition of fact which means the\navailableness of soap and water, for I could not will to wash my hands\nif I had neither soap nor water. These material means are known by me\nto be available when I make up my mind to wash my hands in order to get\nthem clean. So that purpose and means are all included in my act of\nwill, which is nothing more nor less than the actual act of washing my\nhands. If the situation of fact did not include soap and water I could\nat best _wish_ to wash them, never _will_ to do so.\n\nWhat is consequently to be rejected once for all is the idea of a\ndefinite plan that would not allow the taking into consideration of\nthe continual variation of the means. Thus the men of the Risorgimento\nhad to vary their purpose and to reconsider the means to attain it\nafter and before each campaign, having to take as their actual will\nonly that the realisation of which was in harmony with the then actual\nsituation of fact. So that we can say that their real will, the will\nwhich created modern Italy, was exclusively that general will which was\nindividualised in their many splendid deeds of heroism or renunciations\nof their former plans or ideals; these had been formed without the\nhistorical knowledge which alone could make them realise what was the\nsituation of fact.\n\nNow a good deal of admiration is usually bestowed on people of\ngood-will and of pure intentions. Here, however, the very existence of\nsuch good-will, such pure intentions, is denied. The longing of the\nman who wishes he could alter the present state of public affairs in\nhis country is not at all to be considered as a will to do so. For he\ndoes not will to do so as long as he thinks it is impossible. A wish\nof this kind has no value either economically or morally. Whatever the\ncircumstances, if he knows them well, he will know that there must be\nat least one thing that he can do instead of deprecatingly shaking his\nhead as he reads the paper by the fire. When Machiavelli tried to form\na Tuscan Militia to free Florence from her trouble, he did not succeed;\nbut when he left his boisterous and rustic friends over their wine\nand retired to the small library of his modest villa, he did the only\ncivic duty that was left to him to perform; he plunged his lancet into\nthe corrupted body of his country and prepared the way for the coming\ncenturies. Criticism, that is to say negative criticism, when the\ncountry is in danger, or suggestion as to the ideal thing to be done,\nunless they are part of a plan of reform so in keeping with facts that\nit can be immediately acted upon, are merely pretending to be acts of\nwill. I cannot keep by my fireside or lean at my window deploring the\nthings which are going on and pretend that \u201cI will to alter them.\u201d\n\nYet it is often said that we can will the good in the abstract, while\nunable to will it in the concrete, and this means simply that we may\nhave good intentions and yet behave badly. The answer to this has been\nalready given; it may be well, however, to state it once more. Willing\nin the abstract, willing without acting accordingly, is equivalent to\nnot-willing, since, according to Croce, a volition implies a situation\nhistorically determined from which it arises as an act equally\ndetermined and concrete.\n\nThe importance assigned in this theory to the knowledge of the actual\nsituation of fact, and consequently to the historical judgment,\ninvests with the greatest importance the possibility of error. Such\npossibility is, however, excluded by Croce from the theoretical realm\nof mind; for lack of knowledge, ignorance, is not error. It belongs to\npractical activity and we cannot err unwillingly. All errors are due\nto an interference of the will with our apprehension of reality; and\nas any volition is an assertion of our liberty we are responsible for\nit. Everyone knows that immoderate passions or illegitimate interests\nlead insidiously into error; that we err in order to be quick and\nfinish, or to obtain for ourselves undeserved repose\u2014that we err by\nacquiescence in old ideas, that is to say, in order not to allow\nourselves to be disturbed in our repose, and to prolong it unduly, and\nso on. The possibility of erring in good faith is disposed of in this\nway by rejecting the possibility of an error not due to our own will.\nIt thus becomes perfectly legitimate and wise to use practical measures\nto induce those who err to correct themselves, punishing them when this\ncan be of any use. Croce\u2019s defence of the Holy Inquisition, be it of\nthe old Romans against the Christians, of Catholics against heretics,\nor of Protestants against Catholics must not be found surprising. It is\nthe logical conclusion of his view on the responsibility for error;\nand he is not to be found shirking the consequences of his system\nany more than the Fascists. For it is hardly necessary to point out\nthat their abhorrence of all vagueness and indefiniteness is bound to\ndetermine responsibilities in practical activity and consequences in\ntheoretical activity. The necessity of having a single man responsible\nfor anyone of the public services has been mostly realised in\nAnglo-Saxon countries; but where bureaucracy flourishes it is usually a\nBoard, a Committee, in a word an anonymous body which takes decisions\nand steps for which nobody in particular is responsible. Therefore, to\nany complaint the answer must be \u201cwe thought; the committee held; it\nwas generally supposed; the majority came to the conclusion ... that\n...\u201d In such case nobody stands responsible; and each member of the\nCommittee, or Board, throws on the others all the weight of the unhappy\nstep or decision.\n\nWith Croce\u2019s theories such vagueness is destroyed at its root. The\nwill of the people who take a step is their taking of the step, and\nboth action and volition spring from their historical knowledge of\nthe actual situation of fact. Such knowledge is therefore part of\nthe action. The responsibility thus includes the assuming of the\ninformation necessary to the taking of the decision. Naturally this\nhas always been the case, where man\u2019s responsibility is really of\nimportance. On board a ship, for instance, the officer in command has\nalways known that his responsibility includes this knowledge. Ignorance\nof fact is the greatest fault whenever a decision has to be taken,\nwhether the importance of the decision be great or small. This however,\nmust not be held to imply the judging of an action according to its\nsuccess. Historical judgments are not to be passed on the result of\npast actions; historical judgment must be passed on acts, not on facts.\n\nThe distinction between action and event is by Croce emphasised as\nbeing grounded on the distinction between the act of one man and the\nact of the whole; and one might say that the action depends on the will\nof man and the event on the will of God. According to this theory the\naction of the man who shoots at Mussolini is the manifestation of his\nwill, and his failure is the manifestation of God\u2019s will; because the\nwill of the whole, including the will of the chauffeur, who is driving\nMussolini\u2019s car, the wills of the people crowding the edge of the\nstreet, the wills of the guards told off to keep the road clear for the\ncar and the wills of the Fascists thronging to catch a glimpse of their\nidol, which are also volition-actions, determine the event; and this\nis usually termed Providence, or the rationality of history. Thus when\nforeigners, even those who do not approve of Mussolini\u2019s government,\nand Italians, either religiously or coldly, repeat at each new attempt,\n\u201cthe hand of God is on his head,\u201d the conviction which they express is\nperfectly in keeping with Croce\u2019s view, and is by no means equivalent\nto fatalism.\n\nTo express this relation of action to event in a less mystical form\nit ought to be said that the volition-action of any single man is his\ncontribution to the volitions of the whole universe. On this point\nGentile produced another theory some eight or ten years after Croce had\ngiven a systematic form to this doctrine which had been implicit in all\nhis former works. This double contribution of Italy to the conception\nof conduct, if not an entirely new idea of liberty, provides two\nvery original views on that problem, one of those which have always\ntormented humanity.\n\nThe first great step made by Croce was the consequences of his having\ndenied any possible distinction between the volition and the action;\nfor thus he was able to assert the oneness of liberty. We must no\nlonger speak of a liberty of will and a liberty of action.\n\nHe quotes here as an example the case of a paralytic gentleman carried\ninto the square in his servant\u2019s arms during the revolt of 1542 and\nfound after the tumult on the top of a church-tower. The terror had\naroused in him such a will that he had climbed there. As a rule the\nparalytic does not will because he knows he cannot, what he can do at\nthe most is to wish that he was in a different condition. It is quite\ninexact to say that he who is threatened and yields to the threat\nis deprived of his freedom of action. The old formula _coacti tamen\nvolunt_ says as much. Whenever people have been clamouring for greater\nfreedom of action, what they really wanted was to have the conditions\nof fact altered. \u201cEveryone knows,\u201d says Croce,[6] \u201cthat no _vultus\ninstantis tyranni_ can extinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler,\nbe he ever so strong and violent, can prevent a rebellion, or when all\nelse fails, a noble death outwardly affirming the freedom within.\u201d\n\nEvery step onward in Croce\u2019s theories is admirably consequent upon the\nstatements that have preceded it. As man in his theoretical activity\napprehends the world and by knowing it makes it his, so through\npractical activity he collaborates in its creation. The second being\ngrounded in the first, a will independent of knowing is unthinkable.\nThe blind will is not will; the true will has eyes.[7] Without this\nit would be difficult to see how actions could be both free and\nnecessary. Indeed one can say that up to these Italian theories all the\ncontentions on liberty were waged between two tendencies, one leading\nto the ever-recurrent conclusions of Determinism, the other to the\nassertion of free will. To detect that actions are at once free and\ndetermined it was necessary that knowledge of the actual conditions of\nfact should be considered as the essential ground of any volition.\n\nVolition thus is not considered as arising in the void, but in a\ndefinite situation, under definite historical conditions, in relation\nto an event which cannot be eliminated. When the situation changes the\nact of will changes. This amounts to saying that it is necessitated by\nthe situation in which it arises. But it also means that such act of\nwill is free. For it does not make one with the situation, neither does\nit produce a duplicate of it. The volition-action produces something\ndifferent, that is, something new; therefore it is initiative,\ncreation, an act of freedom. Were it not so, a volition would not be an\nact of will and reality would not change through the action of men, it\nwould not become, would not grow upon itself.\n\n\u201cThis consciousness of necessity and liberty inseparably united is\nfound in all men of action, in all political geniuses, who are never\ninert or reckless: they feel themselves at once bound and not bound;\nthey always conform to facts, but always rise above them. The fatuous,\non the other hand, oscillate between the passive acceptance of the\ngiven situation and the sterile attempt to overleap it, that is, to\nleap over their own shadow. They are consequently now inert, now rash.\nThey, therefore, do not fix or conclude anything, they do not act; or,\nif they do, it is always according to what of the actual situation they\nhave understood, and what of initiative they have displayed.\u201d[8]\n\nIf Benedetto Croce had been a prophet he could not have better\ncontrasted Mussolini\u2019s way of proceeding, always surrounded by experts\nand never the slave of data, with the way in which former governments\nproceeded in Italy, when ministers thought that by the grace of the\npeople they had received some sort of super-natural light to discharge\ntheir duty. No practical activity could have been as vigorous as\nthe theoretical reaction of Croce and Gentile against the futility,\nthe abstractness, the pessimism, and above all the materialism that\nwere slowly but surely destroying the third Italy! But their joint\nphilosophical campaign, however brilliant it may have been, could not\narouse the working masses to the new gospel of civic life. This had to\nbe undertaken by a man of faith, endowed with the gifts that make the\nstatesman and the popular leader. But the fact that three such men are\ncontemporaries and that without previous arrangement the theoretical\nactivity of the two former coincide with the practical activity of the\nthird is a good argument on behalf of Croce\u2019s theory of the freedom\nand necessity of man\u2019s action. The situation of fact is the same for\nall three, and they therefore arise for the same purpose although they\nendeavour to realise it through very different means.\n\nSince man\u2019s action, his volition-action, is free, the question whether\nan individual has or has not been free to do what he has done is\nequivalent to asking if he has done it or not. Thus again the character\nof responsibility is emphasised in all human actions. Croce objects\nvery strongly to the way in which criminal lawyers put a poor madman\non a level with the guilty, for he who is mad is partially dead.\nPractical good and evil can be now identified with will and anti-will,\nwith freedom and anti-freedom, with the reality of the will and its\nunreality. For evil, when real, does not exist save in the good, which\nopposes and conquers it; it is, therefore, merely the negative of good,\nand it would be impossible to find an act of will distinctly willing\nthat which is evil as such. A man may want to intoxicate himself with\nalcohol, but in the act of so doing he expects the warmth that will\nspread in his limbs and the delightful oblivion that will free him\nfrom all cares. Hence that which he expects from drink is good. Such\nnegativity of evil has always been current among theologians even\nbefore the days of Thomas Aquinas; but the theory deduced by Croce from\nit is quite original.\n\nAll practical activity is either economic, or both economic and moral.\nThe economic activity is that which wills and effects only what\ncorresponds to the condition of fact in which a man finds himself; the\nethical activity, although it corresponds to these conditions, is that\nwhich transcends them.\n\nTherefore, any act of the individual\u2019s will is economic, but to be\nmoral it must be an act of the universal will. The former is judged by\nthe greater or less coherence of the action in itself, the other by\nits greater or less coherence in respect to the universal end which\ntranscends the individual. No act can be moral without being economic,\nfor however universal it may be in its meaning my action must be mine\nin order to be something concrete and individually determined. In\npractical life we do not meet with morality as a universal, but always\nwith a determinate moral volition. On the other hand, it is easy to\nsee that our actions always obey a rational law, even when moral law\nis suppressed; so that, when every inclination that transcends the\nindividual has been set aside, it is necessary to will this or that\ncoherently, not to oscillate between two or more volitions at the same\ntime. And if we succeed in really obtaining our desire, if, while the\nmoral consciousness is for the moment suspended within us, we abandon\nourselves to the execution of a project of vengeance and execute a\nmasterpiece of ability, even when, in this case, human society does\nnot approve, we for our part feel satisfied, at least so long as the\nsuspension of the moral consciousness lasts; for we have done what\nwe wanted to do, we have tasted, though but for a little while, the\npleasure of the gods.\n\nThe economic form of activity we easily recognise as individual,\nhedonistic, utilitarian, and economic; the moral form is just as\neasily identified. To be moral, an action must first satisfy us as\nindividuals occupying a definite point of time and space, and must also\nsatisfy in us the transcendental being who defies time and space. Croce\nhaving made this distinction absolutely clear, could face the question\nconcerning the nature of law.\n\nTo him law is a _volitional act_ concerning a _class_ of actions.\nTherefore, where the volitional element or the element of class is\nwanting, there cannot be law. Obviously, however, the law is abstract;\nthe act of will is, according to Croce, always of the individual,\nand the element of class is sufficient to deprive the law of anything\nlike concrete life, be it an individual law or a social law. Since\nthe freedom of human actions is logically bound up with his notion\nof practical activity, it is impossible to object that there is an\nessential difference between the programme of life laid down by any\nsingle man for himself, the programme of action laid down by any\nassociation, and the laws laid down by the state, the first being\nmerely a matter of acceptance and the last relying on compulsion.\nIndeed, it is obvious enough that by compulsion one usually means\nthe alternative of complying with the law or facing a penalty. Such\nalternative is the ground of a choice, and the citizen usually chooses,\nbut always freely chooses, to obey the law rather than endure the\npenalty. The fact that some men do rebel is sufficient to prove that\nfreedom cannot be abolished by compulsion.\n\nThen what is the essential difference between individual and social\nlaw? An attempt is usually made to differentiate them by saying that\nthe latter has emanated from and is sustained by a _supreme power_. But\nwhere is the seat of this supreme power? Surely not in anything like a\nsuper-individual, dominating individuals. It is only to be found in the\nindividuals themselves. And in this case its power and value correspond\nwith the power of the individuals who compose it; it is the law of a\ncircle empirically considered to be larger and stronger, but whose will\nis law in so far as the individuals composing it spontaneously conform\nto such a will, because they recognise the convenience of doing so.\nMonarchs who believed themselves to be all-powerful, have realised\nat certain moments that their power rested in a universal consensus\nof opinion, failing which their power vanished, or was reduced to a\ngesture of solitary command, not far from being ridiculous.\n\nGoing back to the definition of laws as _volitional_ acts concerning\nclasses of actions, Croce shows that the so-called laws of nature or\nof grammar are no laws at all, because the act of will is lacking in\nthem. Neither is the jurist, quietly elaborating rules from cases, a\nlegislator. His excogitations will have to wait for a man of will, who\nalone, and _sword in hand_, will endow them with the character of law.\nOn the other hand the so-called moral law, economic law, are no laws\nat all inasmuch as they lack the element of class! \u201cWill the good,\u201d\n\u201cWill the true,\u201d \u201cWill the useful,\u201d are all statements in which a\nvolition is expressed, but then the object of such will is invariably\nthe _universal_, whereas laws have for object something _general_; a\n_class_, not a concept. In short moral law, logical law, or economic\nlaw ought to be called principles instead of laws.\n\nThe character of laws being general and not universal, is perfectly in\nkeeping with their mutability; since actual conditions are constantly\nchanging. It is necessary to add new laws to the old, to retouch these\nor to abolish them altogether. Philosophically speaking, there is but\none cause of changing the laws, viz., the will that in its liberty\nproduces the new law in new conditions of fact. The question whether\nwe should recognise Conservatism or Revolution as the fundamental\nconcept of practical life, does not concern Croce in the least. For him\nevery Conservative is also Revolutionary, since he is always obliged\nto adapt to the new facts the law that he wishes to preserve. Every\nRevolutionary is also a Conservative, since he is obliged to start\nfrom certain laws that he preserves, at any rate provisionally, that\nhe may change others and substitute for them new laws, which he in\nhis turn intends to preserve. Cavour, to use Croce\u2019s own example, was\na Conservative in respect of certain problems, and revolutionary in\nrespect of others, to such a degree that he seemed to the Mazzinians to\nbe a Conservative and to the clericals and legitimists a Revolutionary.\n\nThe demand for an eternal code, a universal, rational, or natural\njustice, in its claim to fix the transitory, is in open contradiction\nwith the historical and, therefore, contingent character of laws.\nWere Natural Law permitted to enforce itself once for all we should\nwitness, with the formation and application of the eternal code, the\ncessation _ipso facto_ of Development, the end of History, the death of\nLife and the dissolution of Reality. Such an end of the world cannot\ntake place because, if it is possible to develop theories which are in\ncontradiction to life, it is quite impossible to make them concrete\nand actual: God, that is to say Reality, does not allow this to be\ndone. Of such theories the best examples are surely Absolute Monarchy\nand Communism. Both as an ideal present themselves as an absolute, a\nperfect form of government and, therefore, would be, if realised, the\nend of life. Anything perfect in the way of political institutions\nwould put a stop to any further progress since the new needs spring\nfrom the actual short-comings of present institutions, and from the new\nneeds the new projects which will bring about new institutions.\n\nThe most intelligent Communists know nowadays that the historical\nnecessities which have brought their party to the fore were economic\nand that that which has been done in passing, such as the improvement\nof working-class conditions, both materially and intellectually, is\nindeed what should have been its real aim. But Providence permits\nmen to act upon their own motives; and well it may, since the will\nof the whole can always have the last word. Communists have done all\nthey that have in the belief that it was done only in the process of\ngetting nearer to their ultimate aim, the abolition of classes. The\nkings of France who, little by little, destroyed the Feudal order, and\nby so doing brought about the unification of France and the rise of\nthe _bourgeoisie_, may have thought that they were merely working for\nthe establishment of an absolute monarchy. Their real work, that is to\nsay the task which was laid out for them by Providence, was to create\na great nation and destroy Feudalism in France through the necessity\nin which they found themselves of getting the support of the middle\nand lower class in order to destroy the petty sovereignties of the\ngreat vassals. But when this was achieved the absoluteness in their\nconception of monarchy was bound to be the cause of its fall. For had\nit been possible it would have meant the cessation of development.\nA form of government if it is absolute is perfect, and it is the\nimperfection which calls for further development. Now Communism makes\nthe same mistake when aiming at bringing about so perfect a society\nthat it would not even need a government. If this came to be it would\nbe the end of the world.\n\nBut this is anticipating Mussolini\u2019s realisation of the fact, and it\nmay be sufficient to state that Croce\u2019s ideas, stated here together,\nwere scattered explicitly in several essays published between 1897\nand 1900, and collected for the first time in 1907 while they were\nimplicitly pervading the whole of his own writings and those of\ninnumerable journalists as well as running on the lips of the\nProfessors who taught in upper schools and universities.\n\nOn this point of the essential mutability of laws and institutions,\nCroce lays a great stress. \u201cWe often meet in history with projects\nof new laws which are said to be better than the old, or good by\ncomparison with those judged more or less bad, the new ones being\nproposed as _natural_ or _rational_ justice, whilst the old ones\nare rejected as unnatural or irrational, just as passionate erotic\ntemperaments, uninstructed by the experience of their past, believe\nwith the utmost seriousness that their new love will be constant and\neternal. Such \u2018Natural laws\u2019 are historical, are transitory, like all\nothers. All men know how, in certain times, and places, religious\ntolerance, freedom of trade, private property, constitutional monarchy,\nhave been proclaimed eternal, and in other times and places the\nextirpation of unbelievers, commercial protection, communism, the\nrepublic and anarchy.\u201d[9]\n\nFrom what has been said it might be taken that Croce has been merely\ndestroying the religious reverence of his countrymen for the actual\napparel of law. Nothing can be farther from truth. His contention was\nthat laws being manifestations of man\u2019s will must change with the\nchanges in facts. The ideas of the eighteenth or nineteenth century\ncan no longer be a living reality. The reality which he denies to the\nlaw itself he recognises as belonging to the single act done under the\nlaw, that is to say to the execution of the law. The indubitable truth,\nas to the necessity of acting in each case according to historical\nnecessities, has induced people at different times and in different\nplaces, to proclaim the sheer uselessness of law. Benedetto Croce is\nmost definitely against such theories. According to him, the best\narguments to be used against them can be drawn from history itself, and\nif they do not rigorously demonstrate the necessity of laws they show\nwell enough that such necessity has been generally felt in all lands\nand in all times. The necessity of laws, ordinances, justice, and the\nstate, appears at all points of human history. Better a bad government\nthan no government at all; and those who declaim against laws can well\ndo so at their ease, for the law surrounds, protects, and preserves\ntheir life for them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nGIOVANNI GENTILE\n\n\nThe difference between the philosophies of the two greatest thinkers\nnow flourishing in Italy is due to the natures of their minds. Croce\nalways starts from a distinct problem, from a particular question,\nand rises to speculative heights partly through the vigour of his own\ngenius and partly through his constant intercourse with Gentile, to\nwhom any particular problem always presents itself from the outset\n_sub quadam specie \u00c6ternitatis_. On the other hand, Gentile starting\nthus, is led to pursue his researches on the central problem into all\nits particular and practical applications by a sense of reality so\nstrong that he has been thought to recall Thomas Aquinas, by his vast\nerudition not only in the history of philosophy, but in the whole\nhistorical world. Yet, even apart from this, and from his special\ninterest in all the problems of Law and pedagogy, the influence of\nBenedetto Croce always compels Gentile to keep in touch with actual\nreality. Their mutual criticism is perhaps the best example in\nphilosophical history of the creative power of the critic. For except\nin one instance\u2014where Croce insists upon seeing in his friend\u2019s Actual\nIdealism the latest form of mysticism\u2014the critic is always continuing\nthe work which he is engaged in reviewing and revealing to the author\nthe germs of truth that lie as yet undeveloped in his theory.\n\nThe import of Croce\u2019s work is certainly more easily grasped than\nGentile\u2019s ideas as they present themselves in his theoretical world.\nMany Italians are acting on these ideas of Gentile\u2019s who would be\nunable to formulate them; and that is the most remarkable thing\nabout them. He became a professor at the age of twenty-one, exactly\nthirty years ago, and as Professor Wildon Carr truly says in his\nintroduction to his own translation of Gentile\u2019s Pure Act\u2014which will\nbe here constantly quoted\u2014he has become famous not only on account of\nhis historical and philosophical writings, but also by the number and\nfervour of the disciples he has attracted. A born teacher, he loves\nteaching, and in teaching has acquired much of his knowledge of mind.\nHe never divorces theory from the concrete ground of life; and when\nhe addresses people between 17 and 60 years of age he is constantly\nforcing them to test in their own actual life the truth of what he is\nsaying.\n\nHe strongly dislikes the taking of notes; for he does not want the\nstudents to repeat his own words on the day of their examination.\nThe lectures are only meant to help them to take their bearings,\nto enlighten them; they must read their set books by themselves\nand interpret them by their own wits. His words must be taken as\nan invitation to think out their own problems for themselves; he\nwants to spur them on, not to solve problems for them. Thousands of\nschoolmasters are actually following his pedagogy which so perfectly\nmeets the requirements of the present generation, that it is admirably\nacted upon in the remotest villages and by people whose philosophy is\nthat of commonsense and good-will. Gentile has produced not only a\nsystem of philosophy, but determined a current of spiritual life which\npartakes both of theory and practice\u2014blending them perfectly.\n\nJust as Bruno, Bacon and Descartes opened the era of subjectivism,\nindividualism and liberty, so now Gentile opens a new era which is a\nsynthesis of law and liberty since he postulates the individual as the\nrelation of the empirical self to the transcendental self, since his\nsubjectivism becomes concrete and capable of realising the object. This\nsounds somewhat abstruse and a few illustrations of the point at issue\nmay be useful.\n\nFuel is not fire, and in order to warm myself, fire is the thing I\nneed. But the fuel is necessary to the fire. The fire, indeed, _is_\nonly so far as it consumes the fuel. Both are necessary; yet it is\nthe fire which makes the fuel; since the coal, wood, or charcoal is\nfuel merely because the fire can destroy it as such. But the fire does\nnot exist before it starts to consume the fuel. Now in knowledge the\nthing man knows is not knowing, it is known; therefore, the principle\nof knowledge is man. But can man know, in the absence of that which\nhe knows? Obviously not. Shall we then go back to the old dualism and\ntake man and the world, the subject and the object, as standing in\nopposition again? No; a thing is an object of knowledge because the\nsubject postulates it as such and is therefore only in the act by which\nthe subject knows it. The one single source of _spiritual_ reality is\nman; but he realises the world only in so far as he realises himself as\na knowing subject. And just as fire is fire as long as it destroys the\nfuel; so man is really man, a spiritual being, a subject as long as he\nacts as such. The point is often explained by practical illustration to\nquite tiny children, to whom no one would try to state it, as I have\njust done, theoretically.\n\n  Master: Why do you come to school?\n\n  Pupil: Because my mother sent me (\u2014or\u2014to learn to read and write.)\n\n  Master: If you come because your mother sent you, that is quite\n  right; but until you see for yourself why you should come to\n  school, you will get very little good out of it.\n\n  Pupil: But since I have got to come, I want to learn.\n\n  Master: And what do you suppose all the others come for?\n\n  Pupil: Why, sir, to learn.\n\n  Master: And tell me, what must I do if you are all to learn?\n\n  Pupil: I suppose you must teach us.\n\n  Master: Well now, what is a school?\n\n  Pupil: This is a school.\n\n  Master: You mean the building?\n\n  Pupil: Yes, of course.\n\n  Master: Don\u2019t you think I could teach and you could learn in a\n  field?\n\n  Pupil: Well, I suppose we could.\n\n  Master: Would that be a school? (No answer). It would. You see the\n  building and the writing over the door have nothing to do with it.\n  _We_ make the school. For if to-morrow the authorities were to send\n  us to a barn and put some poor people here\u2014\u2014\n\n  Pupil (interrupting): Sir, I know, it would be a poorhouse.\n\n  Master: And the barn where we went?\n\n  Pupil: It would be the school.\n\n  Master: Right. Then who makes the school?\n\n  Pupil: The teacher and the pupils.\n\n  Master: Right. But let us go on talking about the same case. The\n  authorities say that this place must be given up to house poor old\n  people. Now I think that a lot of strong boys like you could carry\n  the benches, blackboard and so on to the barn.\n\n  Pupil: Of course we could.\n\n  Master: And I might say to you: \u201cCome this afternoon, all of you,\n  and let us do it.\u201d\n\n  Pupil: Very well, we would come, at least those who live near.\n\n  Master: And we would start teacher and pupils together, carrying\n  the things.\n\n  Pupil: Yes, sir.\n\n  Master: Would that be a school?\n\n  Pupil: Of course not, sir.\n\n  Master: Then it is not enough to have pupils and teacher together\n  to make a school.\n\n  Pupil: No, sir.\n\n  Master: What is missing, then?\n\n  Pupil: Why, sir, we carry benches and things, and that is not a\n  school.\n\n  Master: Well, what exactly is a school?\n\n  Pupil: ... I don\u2019t know.\n\n  Master: I\u2019ll tell you. It is my teaching and your learning that\n  makes a school. Do you see?\n\n  Pupil: Oh, yes.\n\n  Master: But if it is actual teaching and learning that make a\n  school, what happens if the master is a bad master and does not\n  actually teach anything?\n\n  Pupil: Well ... I suppose it is not a real school ...\n\n  Master: It is not a school at all.\n\n  Pupil: I see.\n\n  Master: Now if a boy does not want to learn at all\u2014\u2014\n\n  Pupil: He is a bad pupil.\n\n  Master: He is not a pupil at all, as long as he persists in not\n  learning.\n\n  Pupil: Of course he is not.\n\n  Master: And if he makes a noise and prevents the others from\n  learning, what then?\n\n  Pupil: He oughtn\u2019t, sir.\n\n  Master: I know he oughtn\u2019t. But if he does not see that he\n  oughtn\u2019t, and goes on doing it, what happens?\n\n  Pupil: He prevents the others from learning and the master from\n  teaching.\n\n  Master: Very good, and what is the result for the school, if, as\n  you see, it is the actual teaching and learning which makes the\n  school?\n\n  Pupil: It is just as before, when the Master was bad, it stops\n  being a school.\n\n  Master: Now supposing you didn\u2019t mind being punished rather than\n  keep still, could you start singing or jumping about just to be\n  funny?\n\n  Pupil: Well, no, not even if I did not mind being sent out, I\n  couldn\u2019t.\n\n  Master: Do you know why?\n\n  Pupil: Because I should spoil your teaching and their learning.\n\n  Master: And you would destroy the school.\n\nIn such a discussion, which may occupy several days or weeks, the child\nhas obviously learnt some rules of life derived from highly speculative\nnotions. The reality of any relation depends on two acts directed\ntowards a common aim; therefore, the rights of the two parties are\ndependent upon their actual efficiency in the pursuit of the common\naim. A master who does not teach must be dismissed; a pupil who does\nnot learn loses the right of being a pupil. Similarly, if a landowner\nallows the ground to lie waste, he is not discharging his duties as a\nlandowner and his rights to his property are not actual. This stands\nin complete contrast with the \u201cRights of Man\u201d which could assert man\u2019s\nliberty to use his property as he chose, the state only calling upon\nits citizens to pay taxes\u2014and fight in war, because the state was\nunderstood as something external to the citizens. The relation between\nemployer and employed is clearly parallel to that between master and\npupil; in it the common aim is to realise as much profit as possible\nout of the enterprise. As soon as one of the parties diminishes the\nproductivity of the enterprise, he forfeits his right to damage\nhimself, the other party and the commonwealth. The state, though having\nno direct shares in the profit is enriched or impoverished according to\nthe increased or decreased productivity of private enterprises.\n\nIn this is stated for the first time since Christ preached and lived\nthe Gospel, the true equality of men that had been asserted in it. So\nthoroughly does Christianity realise that rights are correlative to\nduties, that before spiritual citizenship can be bestowed on a child\nin most Christian churches sponsors are required to take a pledge in\nits name, and upon its coming to adult state the young Christian must\nconfirm that pledge and acknowledge the duties on which its rights\ndepend.[10] This is the reason why the Roman Catholic Church is at once\ndemocratic and hierarchical. A shepherd can become Pope, an Emperor\ncan be deprived of his spiritual citizenship. The view of citizenship\nas a birthright is a relic of Paganism when slavery might be the\npredestined fate of some and citizenship of others. Political reality\nfinally becomes spiritual reality; man is a citizen exactly in so far\nas he realises the state, through the act of consciousness by which,\ntranscending the empirical element in his own will, he postulates such\na will in religious objectivity, thereby making it law.\n\nThe little boy, in realising that his purpose in going to school is\nto learn, transcends everything in his will that is merely individual\nor private. His will ceases to be subjective, it becomes greater than\nthe little boy, it becomes school life, it becomes objective and\ntranscending the little boy, it is to him _Law_ in all the majesty and\nimperativeness of the term. Again, boys become members of a football\nteam because they want to play and eventually win matches. They want\nthis freely and this choice, together with their individual skill in\nthe game, produces the team as a unit for the purposes of play. But\nthe team once formed, the captain chosen for his fitness to command\nthe team in such a way as to increase its efficiency, and each member\ncalled to perform the part in which he can best serve the team\u2019s\ninterest, the act of will by which each member in perfect liberty wants\nto win a match transcends itself, become the team\u2019s will, and as such,\nobjective, sacred, inviolable law. The instances in which members of a\nteam, disregarding the orders of the captain (in whom the eleven wills\nin all their liberty fuse into one and become law), play to show off\ntheir personal skill illustrate clearly enough by their effect on the\nscore, the inviolableness of such collective will.\n\nTo realise the full force of this relation between liberty and law, the\nstate and the citizen, is not easy, if one looks for it exclusively\nin Gentile\u2019s philosophy of law; but his pedagogy makes it far easier\nand his lectures perfectly easy. There is something religious about it\nwhich pervades the whole of his philosophy as it pervades Fascism.\n\nThe child is brought to realise what he is by looking at the various\nsocieties which co-operate in making him what he is. Being asked what\nhe would say, If somebody meeting him in America asked him what he\nwas and who he was, what would he say? He usually answers to such a\nquestion that he would say: \u201cI am so-and-so,\u201d but he is then asked:\n\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d which brings the child to realise that the\nmeaning of his name is that he is the son of his father and mother,\nhe is what he is first of all as belonging to his particular family.\nAgain: \u201cI am so-and-so\u201d conveys but little to a perfect stranger. What\nwould he say next. \u201cI am an Italian.\u201d Very well, and \u201cwhat kind of\nman in Italy?\u201d... The child here usually pauses in great perplexity.\nIt takes some time before he comes to speak of a possible profession\nand of his religion; and for this last point it is necessary to point\nout to him that there are several religions. Once he has got there,\nhowever, he realises so fully all that is implied in this kind of\ndefinition that one can hardly help being astonished by the readiness\nwith which children or older boys work out Gentile\u2019s ideas. The author\nhas had the opportunity of noting how easily children grasped the true\nnature of their relation to family, country, religion, and school, and\nthe fact that what they were depended on their consciousness of being\na living member of such societies. The child thus acquires a religious\nattitude towards them. He realises the sacred character of the family,\nas based solely upon his own moral realisation of his relation to the\nmembers of his family. The family blood running in his veins, he is\ntold has nothing to do with that relation. His father is his father in\nthe spiritual way which alone binds them together, because he calls\nhim his son and acknowledges paternal relationship to him with all the\nduties and claims that it involves. Gradually he comes to realise that\nhe draws all his importance\u2014his reality\u2014from his conscious relation\nto the societies to which he belongs and which together make up the\nnot-self; and that such societies are merely the various consciousness\nof single members transcending their poor, limited, empirical\nlittle selves and calling into existence their better and greater,\ntranscendental selves. Man as a thing-in-itself is nowhere to be found;\nmankind vanishes like a phantom as soon as you try to meet it. If every\nman and boy in the world discharged his duty as a member of a family,\nof a school, of a club, of a calling, and finally of a church and of a\nstate, mankind would certainly know peace and well-being, for man then\nwould consider his relations, school, club and trade fellows, religious\nbrethren and fellow citizens as belonging to his own self. But no man\ncan do so perfectly, and it is as much as can be expected from him if\nhe does what, in the sincerity of his soul, he knows to be the very\nbest he can do and loves his neighbour merely so far as he realises\nhim to be part of his greater self. The speculative ground of such a\nconception of life must be briefly stated before coming to the idea of\nLiberty and Law, and to that of citizen and state.\n\nSpiritual reality is not Mind plus some spiritual fact; it is purely\nand simply Mind as subject, since any spiritual fact must be resolved\nin the real activity of the subject, who knows it. Common language\nexpresses this by saying that to know something thoroughly we must\nmake it our own. Strictly speaking we know no others. If we know them\nand speak of them they must be within us. To know is to identify, to\novercome otherness as such. As long as we feel ourselves confronted\nby the spiritual existence of others as different from ourselves,\nsomething from which we must distinguish ourselves, something which we\npresuppose as having been in existence before our birth, it is merely a\nsign that we are not yet realising the spirituality of their existence.\nTo us they are still nature.\n\nThis doctrine would be absurd if it were not considered in the light\nof Gentile\u2019s notion of the transcendental and empirical selves, both\nmeeting in man, as a concrete person in whom the infinity of the\ntranscendental individualises itself through the finiteness of the\nempirical. The transcendental ego being one and the empirical egos\nbeing multiplicity itself, it is obvious that the _differences_ are\nas necessary to the identity as the fuel to the fire. It is, indeed,\nthrough the process of transcending empirical differences that man\nasserts the transcendental character of mind.\n\nObviously all the difficulties of moral problems arise from an\nempirical conception of man and his relations to others. Empirically I\nam an individual, and as such in opposition not only to all material\nthings, but equally to all the individuals to whom I assign a spiritual\nvalue, since all objects of experience, whatever their value, are not\nonly distinct but separate from one another in such a way that each, by\nits own particularity absolutely excludes from itself all the rest. All\nmoral problems arise from experience and arise precisely because of\nthe absolute opposition in which the ego, empirically conceived, stands\nto other persons tormented by the supreme moral aspiration of our being\nthat longs for a harmony in which we should become one with all others\nand with the whole world. This means that moral problems arise in so\nfar as we become aware of the unreality of our being, as an empirical\nego, opposed to other persons and surrounding things, and in so far as\nwe come to see that our own life is actualised in the things opposed\nto it. But though this is the situation in which moral problems arise,\nthey are solved only when man comes to feel another\u2019s needs as his own,\nand thereby finds that his own life means that he is not closed within\nthe narrow circle of his empirical personality, but is ever expanding\nin the activity of a mind superior to all particular interests and\nyet immanent in the very core of his personality. It must never be\nforgotten, however, that the reality of the transcendental ego, far\nfrom destroying the empirical ego, implies it.\n\nPassing to the essential characteristics of what might be opposed\nas spiritual to what is natural, we find Gentile working out the\ndistinction from the fact that anything natural, such as a stone,\n_is_ whilst anything spiritual, mind, a work of mind, a political\nconstitution _becomes_. Mind and being are opposite terms. A plant\n_is_, an animal _is_, in so far as all the determinations of the plant\nor animal are a necessary and _pre-ordained consequence_ of its nature.\nAll the manifestations by which their nature is expressed are already\nthere, existing implicitly. The empirical manifestations of their\nbeing come to be conceived, therefore, as closed within limits already\nprescribed as impassable boundaries. In the natural world everything\nis pre-ordained according to the law of Nature, or, to use Gentile\u2019s\nown words, everything _is by Nature_. In the spiritual world nothing\n_is by Nature_, but it becomes what it becomes through the activity\nof mind. Nothing is ever ready-made; nothing can be finished and\ncomplete. The social position of a family, the political system of a\ncountry can never be settled once for all; the members of the former\nand the citizens of the latter must go on creating it day by day and\nhour by hour. So is it with moral life. All the noblest achievements\nof the past do not diminish one whit the sum of duties still to be\nperformed. The minute man stops realising in the inmost recesses of\nhis consciousness what he must do for his family, for his country, or\neven for the firm to which he belongs, the family will be decadent,\nthe country will begin to lose what his predecessors had painfully\nwon, the firm will feel the incipient decay of a credit acquired\nthrough work and sacrifice. Nothing is ever done once for all; morally,\nintellectually, politically, socially, economically, everything is\nalways to be done.\n\nA hard gospel to preach when man is accustomed as he is now to hear\nonly the proclamation of his rights. Sacrifice, self-denial is here\npointed out as the way to greater conquests and to the assertion of\na nobler and more powerful self. To find spiritual reality man must\nseek it and, seeking it, create it. This means that it never confronts\nhim as an external reality. If man wants to find it he must work to\nrealise it. So long as it is sought it is found, so long as it is being\nconquered or constructed it is to be found, so long but no longer.\nEmpires show signs of incipient decay the moment the Empire builders\nstop building them, stop wanting to build them. Yet from this austere\nconception of life springs a beautiful notion of liberty, a splendid\nconception of man\u2019s creativity.\n\nGentile has had the courage to study closely, very closely, the old\nscholastic Doctors, thereby acquiring a deep and almost unerring sense\nof Christianity; whilst his familiarity with the problems of law and\nthe works of the Humanists and the Renaissance, have marked him with\ncharacteristics that sometimes cause his hearers to hail in him a\nFather of the Church. All this notwithstanding there are many points of\ndoctrine upon which he stands in contrast with the theologians.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhere Gentile speaks of thinking he invariably refers both to the\nact of the will and to the act of the intellect; for he considers\ntheir distinction as having been abolished when through the work of\nmodern psychology the very notion of a multiplicity of faculties was\nrejected. The mind is not now intellect and now will; but is known now\nas intellect and now as will. It should be observed, however, that\nthe creative will does not create a world that issues from it and\nexists independently of it; it is self-creative just as any judgment\nis first of all self-assertive. No act of man\u2019s will is ever directed\nto something already realised; man always wants to do an action. For\ninstance, wanting a new pair of shoes merely means wanting to buy, to\nhave, to get, a new pair of shoes; and since we have seen that any\naction is self-assertion, man in any act of will is wanting to realise\nhis own self. In consequence of the unity existing between him and the\nworld, man\u2019s purpose is never external to him. Man realising his own\nself: such is the nature of mind, dynamic and dialectic at once.\n\nThis notion of dialectic enables us to meet law and liberty on their\ncommon ground, morality; spiritual reality is endowed with a life that\nis best called dialectic, inasmuch as it is never either completely\npositive or purely negative. Anything spiritual from the most intimate\nreligious experience, down to any political form, family arrangement,\nor business establishment _is_ so long as, not yet being, it strives\nto realise, to assert, to establish itself. Anything spiritual let\nus say, human, the moment it _is_, that is to say the moment it is\naccomplished, the moment it ceases to develop or establish itself, is\ndead or dying. Gentile uses even stronger language: he says outright,\n_as a reality it is absolutely_ annihilated.\n\nFor him, as for Kant, the law of man\u2019s will is the end that determines\neach act of will; since to be moral the will must have in itself\nits own law and its own end. The word moral can here have but one\nequivalent, namely, spiritual, that is to say _possessing value_.\nMorality so understood is an attribute of the entire life of mind,\nwhich must have an absolute value\u2014be it truth, beauty, or goodness\u2014such\nvalue being meaningless if it does not correspond to an ought to be,\nimperative _hic et nunc_ as a consequence of liberty. Moreover, this\nbinding imperativeness is universal\u2014for imperative means necessary, and\nthere can be no necessity without universality.\n\nThe good is, in conclusion, the value of man\u2019s spirit in its\ndialectical actuality; it may be termed the most concrete form of\nspiritual reality. Any spiritual act is moral in so far as it is mind\u2019s\nrealisation; consequently the negation of morality cannot be understood\nwithout understanding this realisation, which is the spiritual process\nor development of mind as society. The good is development; and as\nsuch it implies evil as its negativity.[11] Light and shadow, good\nand evil; in both cases the second term is the negative of the first.\nAnd herein lies all the tragedy of mind. Spiritual life is a complex\nof light and shadow, a constant struggle of the particular with the\nuniversal. Negativity opposes itself to positivity, evil to good, as\nthe _particular_ to the universal. Yet it is through their conflict and\nopposition that spiritual life realises itself, and this realisation is\nentrusted to the individual, who in and through his very particularity\nis the agent of the universal will.\n\nObviously, if we take man, the individual man, in his pure\nempiricalness, he can do nothing without superhuman help. But this\nnotion of man, which is the ground of all the abstract forms of\negoism, individualism and anarchy, is a mere fancy. No single man can\nso be deprived of the divine light of intelligence as not to know\nof his own existence as a person, as a self, and in the very act\nof knowing himself as such to assert what is universal in him. Man\nin short is universal in so far as he does not belong to nature, a\npure object of knowledge, but is a subject. So that his moral law is\nnothing superadded to him _ab extra_, it is the life granted to him by\nProvidence realising itself.\n\nThis is a far cry from ordinary selfishness. From this point of view\nthe _bellum omnium contra omnes_ appears as the materialistic fancy of\na man whose idea of the world was inferred from the idea of the body.\nMan\u2019s body is in fact one among many. But man\u2019s will in his opposition\nto other wills reveals his universality. That opposition which had\nbeen taken as proof of the plurality and radical particularity of\nsubjective will is insisted upon by Gentile as a proof of the unity and\nradical universality of such will. Men\u2019s wills collide with each other,\nit is true, but they do so in the very attempt to enforce the claims\nof that in them which is universal. For will has not realised itself\nas long as it stands as one will face to face with another will or so\nmany other wills. In such a position it appears as one among many, as\naccidental and particular, as having a law differing from that of the\nothers; whereas it always claims to be Will, against which there can be\nno other will\u2014experience shows us daily that nothing can be done when\ndiverging wills are exerting themselves\u2014and such is the characteristic\nof the moral will.\n\nThe statement of this problem, the moral problem, is very difficult\nindeed, and from a misrepresentation of the relations between _my_\nwill and _your_ will and _his_ will, arise conflict and war; but our\nconception of war is not complete if we consider it apart from the\nconception of peace. War is nothing but the realisation of peace, which\nis the reconciliation of a duality or plurality of wills in the Will.\nThis is why war exists and why there are private interests conflicting\nin the plurality of wills. Such war and conflict, however, are due\nto the particularity of the wills and last as long as each of these\nwills insists on realising itself as universal, ceasing when they\ncompose their differences and accept as the common will that which\nhas manifested its universality through the conflict. A peace without\nwar cannot be conceived, since peace is the life of will and will\ncannot live but in a self-assertion which is nothing but the eternal\nresolution of the conflict through which it comes into being. Thus will\nis, and ever must be, _concordia discors_.\n\nWhatever the social unit taken as an example\u2014family, school, state,\nchurch\u2014the reality of it is always in development and is intelligible\nonly as a process. It never _is_, and always is, but only in so far\nas it realises itself in perfect liberty. This free realisation does\nnot permit of the separation of its negativity from its positivity.\nIn such a way, though realising itself as universal, the family or\nstate can be thought of as a spiritual reality only in so far as it\ncontains the particular element which offers an endless resistance to\nthe process of universalisation. A society that perfectly unifies its\nspiritual diversity, abolishing every sign of variety, has inevitably\ngone to pieces since it loses all the spiritual forces that made it\nalive. Gentile goes so far as to say that in fact it is already dead.\nIt is the eternally recurring opposition of interests and wills that\npermits the dialectic and dynamic unity of life to pulsate in any\nsocial constitution. Consequently the particularity of the will\u2014to be\nresolved in the universal\u2014consists in its negativity, without which the\nassertion of the universal could not exist as an act, for it would be a\nmere fact, not something due to the act of man but just something which\n_is_ by nature.\n\nThere is no assertion of will which is not exclusion, suppression\nof its own negation. Thus society is empirically the agreement of\nindividuals, and speculatively the realisation of will through an\neternal process. Universal value is thereby identified as a process\nrealising itself through the suppression of what is particular and\nnegative. Society is not _inter homines_, but _in interiore homine_ and\nit can exist between men inasmuch as all men are spiritually one man,\nwith one single interest: the eternal _increment_ of the patrimony of\nmankind.\n\nNow _society_ implies _authority_, a superior will imposed on the\nassociated wills to unite them under a common law. Rousseau had\nconceived the state, the people as a passive body, reserving activity\nfor the sovereign. Gentile having raised to speculative form the\nbrilliant intuition that lies in the Contract, after having fully\nrecognised it as Rousseau\u2019s idea, now rejects his conception of the\ndistinction between sovereign and subjects. What he actually denies is\nthe passivity ascribed to the people, and the school is, as usual, the\nexperimental ground of his notion.\n\nSchool is a form of spiritual association implying a teacher, lawgiver\nto his pupils. It is not the teacher, however that, through his\nauthority, brings the pupils to accept truth; on the contrary it is\ntruth that confers authority on the teacher. The _Ipse dixit_ implies\na great knowledge of the master\u2019s familiarity with science. Whatever\nthe ground on which we acknowledge an authority, the authority is such\nas a consequence of our _acknowledging_ it; and all the theories and\ninquiries concerning the source of a higher authority are to Gentile\nvain prattling. For him it is quite obvious that, however high such an\nauthority may be it will never be higher than the height to which it\nhas been raised by the people subject to it. Through this agency and\nthis agency alone authority _becomes_ law.\n\nAuthority is invested in the spiritual self, the universal person,\nultimately the only sovereign. This transcendental self is the\ntranscendental law of which we have spoken as moral law, the\ntranscendental sovereign which has brought Gentile to reject Rousseau\u2019s\ndistinction between passive citizenship and active sovereignty because\nit throbs in every man\u2019s breast and is the one law and sovereign that\ncan impose laws and make them acknowledged.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is now easy to realise that, although Gentile was first known as\na Hegelian, by the time he wrote his philosophy of law he had fully\ndeveloped the more realistic tendencies of his Idealism which link him\nto Thomas Aquinas, Kant and above all to Vico. The real difference\nbetween Gentile\u2019s notion of political reality and that of Hegel\u2014the\nlikeness is too obvious to require pointing out\u2014is a consequence of\ntheir different ways of working out their respective notions of reality.\n\nIn spite of his brilliant conception of dialectic Hegel\u2019s intuition\nof Reality is not dialectical but intellectualistic, and therefore\nstatic. He realised that we do not conceive reality dialectically\nunless we conceive it as itself thought. But he distinguished the\nintellect which conceives things from the reason which conceives mind\nand his dialectic was in consequence a dialectic of thought, thought\nhowever being understood as the result of the act of thinking. Whereas\nto have a real dialectic, corresponding to the throbbing reality of\nlife, what is wanted is a dialectic of thought, understood as the act\nof thinking. What has already been thought is as static as a stone.\nHence the necessity in which Hegel found himself of separating thought\nand action, which led him to declare in the introduction to his\nphilosophy of Right that Philosophy was a twilight bird, whose activity\nbegan at dusk when the day\u2019s work was done. For Hegel a law in order\nto be imperative must be pronounced by something that is already in\nexistence. But Reality in existence is nature. Hegel\u2019s state belonging\nthus to static reality, being a fact, not an act, the citizen is\nnothing in himself; all his reality come to him from the state. This\ndoes not mean that he is annihilated (both in Imperialism and Communism\nhe is very highly cultivated), but is as the little wheel of a huge\nengine which is carefully oiled so that the machine may go the better\nfor it. His end is the state\u2019s end.\n\nNot so with Gentile. Reality, being really dialectical does not admit\nof a distinction between will and intellect. You do not act and then\nthink about it. For life, natural or spiritual, is the reality: if\ntheory, the activity of the intellect, is merely a contemplation of\nit, such theory is not even real. How can one think of something added\nto the real world? What could such an addition be? There is no way of\nconceiving knowledge except as a creation of the spiritual reality\nwhich is itself knowledge. If Reality is spiritual, in realising\nitself it creates both the will and the intellect. It is only through\nthe empirical consideration of their manifestations that they can be\ndistinguished; speculatively they are one and the same thing.\n\nThe difference between the idea of a good action and a good action\nitself is a difference between two ideas. In the first case we mean the\nidea which is a content or abstract result of thought, but not the act\nby which we think it, and in which its concrete reality truly lies. And\nin the second we mean the idea, not as an object or content of thought,\nbut as the act which realises a spiritual reality.\n\nThe state can not be a fact, something already realised. It is the\neternal process, the _instauratio regnum boni_ always becoming, and\ndying to be realised by the consciousness of the individual in its own\nprocess of self-realisation. The state is indeed the moral reality of\nthe individual, who to become a citizen realises himself transcending\nhis empirical subjectivity. The state exists only in the hearts of\nmen; it is the intellectual and practical activity of men realising\nthemselves as spiritual reality. It is always being altered through\nthe positive and negative manifestation of man\u2019s moral will. Man is\nnot and cannot be subject to the state, except in so far and in so far\nonly as he is its creator. And creation means liberty no less than\nself-realisation means realisation of the not-self and therefore the\nlaw.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nBENITO MUSSOLINI\n\n\nNow that we have traced both the political and philosophical\nantecedents of what is here called Fascism, since it expresses itself\nas such, but might perhaps as well be termed the political and\nphilosophical coming of age of Italy as a great nation, we must turn\nto the man, whose lot it has been to embody such historical forces and\nbring them to actual realisation.\n\nIt may seem rather rash to compare Benito Mussolini with Dante and\nsome people may think it a profanation. Poetry and politics put on the\nsame level; a man considered by many little better than an adventurer\n(and appearing as such in the biography written by a friend of his,\nMiss M. Sarfatti); the new constitution far from being complete and,\nFascist legislation comprising with a very few great laws, a sequence\nof decrees suggestive of tyranny! Such a comparison must seem to some\nabsurd, although it is a fact that just as Dante embodied in the Divina\nCommedia all the philosophy, all the arts and politics of medi\u00e6val\nItaly, Mussolini is now embodying in the new r\u00e9gime all that is great\nand good in modern Italy.\n\nIt may be held, in fact, that political deeds do express the life of\nminds just as forcibly as poetry, therefore that they do not stand in a\nposition of \u00e6sthetic inferiority to the compositions of poets, unless\none chooses to compare the politics of a decadent period to the poetry\nof a great period. It may also be held that \u201cadventurer\u201d is an epithet\nthat befits better the Duce of Miss Sarfatti than the Uomo Novo of\nAntonio Beltramelli, in whose book the same Duce appears as the herald\nof an entirely new period of the life of Italy. And the present book\nis concerned exclusively with what may prove of lasting value in the\nlaws of the government of Mussolini, and does not imply an approval\nof what may be objectionable in the actual methods of government; it\ntakes the view that tyrannical decrees and the like are inherent in\nthe revolutionary stage of the r\u00e9gime and temporary measures bound to\ndisappear when that stage has been outgrown. Our sensible souls may\nbe shocked when we feel the violence of the hatred with which Dante\npursues his enemies right into Hell or Purgatory. Mussolini\u2019s soul is\njust as sensible and modern as our own. Not only would he forbear from\nhating his dead adversaries, but he does not hate his enemies even\nduring their life. He can speak of them with the greatest serenity and\nrecall the time when they were his friends without losing his sense of\nfair appreciation. He can compare with Dante for the violence of his\nhostility only when hostile attacks are directed against his task and\nare an impediment to him and his men in what he considers the work laid\ndown for them by Providence.\n\nBut this is stretching too far a comparison which has been made merely\nto explain the impossibility of giving good grounds for the fact\nthat Mussolini was the one man fit to realise in politics all the\ntheoretical ideas and practical tendencies that have been traced in\nthis work. Such facts are as mysterious as the nature of genius. Yet it\nmay not be out of place to note that both Dante and Mussolini have the\nsame love of learning and just too much intuition to contribute to the\ntheoretical life of mind; and that the contrast which exists between\nsome inferior passages of the Divina Commedia and those that make it\nan immortal poem is not greater than that which exists between what is\nobjectionable in Mussolini\u2019s way of ruling and that which is likely\nto be of eternal value in the ideals that underlie the whole of his\npolitical thought of action.\n\nThrough the political realisation of what was potentially included\nin their political theories France and England have shared, as we\nhave seen, the honour of being the champions of Liberalism and\nRadical Democracy, just as through the political elaboration of the\ntheories of Kant, Fichte and Hegel, Germany has developed Imperialism\nand Communism. Now that such political institutions and systems of\nphilosophy have given all that could be had out of them, Italy comes\nforward and opposes, to what her thinkers consider as being henceforth\nat best abstract subjectivism, another subjectivism which\u2014being freed\nfrom the materialism, mechanism and naturalism, that persisted in\nthought and life of former generations, being freed also from the\npractical reasons which compelled the thinkers of those days to oppose\nreligion on account of the Church\u2019s impediments to free researches\u2014can\nidentify itself with Mind, and more specially with the activity of\nMind. The individual, the subject to assert itself in the activity of\nmind must have an object. Self implies Not-self. Therefore, liberty\nimplies law. The citizen implies the state. The employer, or the\nemployed, implies the enterprise for the productivity of which one\nemploys and the other is employed.\n\nIn short, after the objectivism of the late Middle Ages and\nRenaissance, after the subjectivism of the modern world, Fascism is the\nsynthesis of both in politics, just as well as in philosophy, since,\nafter the \u201ceverything through the force of privilege\u201d of the former\nand the \u201ceverything through the force of numbers\u201d of the latter, it\ncomes and says \u201ceverything for everyone that shall deserve it through\nmoral sacrifice and productive activity.\u201d It tries to bring forward\nthe Christian equality of men since it meets everyone on the basis of\nactual value. It tries to realise fraternity by getting men to feel\nthat their real value is based on their realising as perfectly as\npossible the intimate relation of self and Not-self which brings each\nman to see himself in his neighbour, and his neighbour as himself.\n\nMussolini, to whom we must always turn as the living expression of\nFascism, firmly believes that men may be called upon to sacrifice some\nof their most selfish claims and he hopes to make them realise that\nthey must renounce their empirical selves to create thereby the State\nas their transcendental self. Fascism does not want men to look upon\nlaw\u2014in the broadest sense of the word\u2014as a sort of starry reality\ninalterable and indifferent to men; it hopes that they may realise how\nintimately it is related to every citizen, and from the very first\nyear of their school life little children are mentally trained to see\nit as their own will transcending itself and becoming law in a kind of\nreligious objectivity.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nMussolini, when he was still in his teens, used to sit up late in the\ninn kept by his father in Forli, and according to a man who used\nto meet him there, he was even then wont to distress himself at the\nmaterialistic form which Socialism had taken in Italy. Day after day\nhe would make the same objection, \u201cIt is all right,\u201d he would say,\n\u201cto better the economic conditions of the people, and you do better\nthem. But I cannot help realising that they are losing more and more\nthe spiritual life which was for them religion and tradition, without\ntaking anything of the higher and nobler side of Socialism.\u201d He had\nread Andrea Costa\u2019s writings and was devouring the international\nclassics of Socialism, besides his Mazzini, so often quoted by his own\nfather and the Republicans of Forli, who had never read a page of the\ngreat idealist. The thought that people were getting more and more\nindifferent to everything but food or rest, was a nightmare to him.\nWhen some twelve years later he became the leader of the Socialist\nParty in the same town he took up the official attitude of his party\nagainst religion. This may be noted in the articles he wrote as the\neditor of _La Lotta di classe_ during the years 1910\u20131911. He is an\northodox Socialist, and pours out a lot of anti-religious and even\nanti-patriotic stuff in a style and with a choice of vocabulary that\nmight befit indifferently an English, a French, or a German Socialist\nleader of the same period. Here and there, however, a single sentence\nattracts the careful Italian reader, or the foreigner familiar with\nall the shades of the language. A personal accent is felt; there is\nan original idea in an original wording; and it is either a request\nthat the party leaders should be experts and the members qualified\nartisans; or an appeal highly spiritual, and in a way deeply religious.\nThere are witnesses to the fact that when he had been in the morning\nissuing an official prohibition of all religious practises he often\nmet in the evening with a theologian to see if there could be a way\nof re-introducing religion without detriment to Socialism. \u201cFor this\npeople,\u201d he would say, \u201cabove all the women, _have no conception of\nlife_ at all, since we have deprived them of religion.\u201d\n\nIt would be, therefore, a profound mistake to see in Mussolini\u2019s\nattitude towards the Church, and in the action of his government to\nreinstate religion all through life, a political move, intended to\nsecure the support of the clergy. Religion is not a useful string on\nwhich he plays as the great artist he is, either to secure the support\nof the Catholics and their clergy, or to keep people quiet and insure\ntheir moral education. What he realised between 1900 and 1912, through\nan intuition of genius, is that the people had no general notion\nwhatever, no concept of what is life, never even realised that they\ncould ask themselves such a question as: What is life, what is the\nworld? and that religion was necessary to them.\n\nMussolini firmly believes in the necessity of arousing strong religious\nconviction in the people of every class. He does so on ground\nprovided to him by the example of his mother, by the result of his\nown observation and experience as a leader, and last, but not least\nby his reading of de Sanctis\u2019s principal work. That great critic is,\nindeed, the one link between Vico, Croce, Gentile and Mussolini, whose\ngenius was to create the political system in which their ideas receive\npractical realisation.\n\nFascism rejects the very notion of theory as distinct from action and\nis a constant expression in action of ideas far more easily acted\nupon than formulated, so that its most ignorant followers go as\nfar as to reject the possibility of anything like an intellectual\nmovement paving the way for them through the preceding generations,\nwhilst they act all along in keeping with the spiritual atmosphere\nwhich that intellectual movement has developed and the ideas it has\nput in circulation. The reason of this lies in the \u00e6sthetic genius\nof Mussolini. Like the greatest artists produced by Italy, he is at\nonce macrocosm and microcosm. The whole of Italy\u2019s past, as in another\nDante, converges in him. His avid personality takes it all in, to put\nit out again with such an indelible stamp upon it that what might be\ntermed its Fascist-ness is the only character left to it.\n\nNow what Mussolini hopes to obtain from the recrudescence of religious\nlife is that the people should get a wider outlook upon _Life_ in the\nhighest sense of the word. He never uses philosophical terms to express\nit; yet so highly speculative is the notion that Giovanni Gentile is\nprobably the only philosopher to have worked it out, and whosoever\ndid not believe in Providence could be convinced that Providence\nexists just by studying Croce, Gentile, and the way their work attains\nrealisation at the hands of Mussolini without any previous arrangement.\nBy getting people to have a deeper understanding of life Mussolini\nmeans to make them realise that man\u2019s individual life is not by a long\nway the supreme value, that man\u2019s individual will is not by a long\nway the supreme law, that man\u2019s individual circumstances are not in\nthemselves by a long way constitutive of _Life_. All these aims he\nhopes to reach through religion.\n\nWhen he was a Socialist Leader he was struck by the immorality of women\nand by the cowardice of men. These would lay traps in which other\npeople might lose their lives, as when they unscrewed the rails of\nthe railway in the province of Forli, but they would not risk their\nown lives. Being at that time, a most orthodox Socialist he could\nnot think: \u201clet us stop this demoralising propaganda.\u201d He believed\nthat it would be all right in the end, when the end, with a capital\nE, should have come for this capitalist society based as it was on\nselfishness. He wanted a religion, and having then a mentality quite\nanti-historical, he really believed that he could give them a new\nreligion if he could but find it. For this would make them realise,\nso he thought, that they did not count in themselves but only through\ntheir relations to others; and that to realise their better self, they\nmust always look at the whole, which is nothing so long as single\nmen are not conscious of belonging to it, but without which they can\ndo nothing to assert their claims as rights and out of which indeed\nno claim of theirs can really be a right. Obviously, this is man\ntranscending his own self to assert it through the very negation of its\nempirical nature.\n\nIt is impossible to insist too much on this point for the new\nconception of life that was reaching speculative expression in the\nworks of Gentile was here, in this intuitive mind of quite a young\nman, who knew nothing of Gentilian theories, working its way towards\npractical realisation. Before the way in which he was to proceed from\nthis to the economic theories that _may_ rid the western world of\nstrikes and lock-outs one fact must be put in evidence. From what has\nbeen said above, it is clear that his appreciation of the strength of\nany collectivity must be based on the degree of consciousness with\nwhich the single members realise such collectivity. He had at first\nnot made out the import and the consequences of such a view. But the\nnecessity of pleading his own cause, when he was tried in 1911 by the\nTribunal of Forli, for having ordered a strike of protest against the\nTripoli war, put on his lips a declaration that must be taken into\nconsideration whenever Mussolini\u2019s \u201cImperialism\u201d is in question. In\nthe records of the tribunal he is stated to have pleaded his case,\nsaying that he did not love his country less than the Nationalists\ndid; the difference was between his idea of a country\u2019s greatness\nand theirs. He thought that such greatness depended far more on the\nspiritual and economic level reached by the people of a country, than\non its territorial extension, the number of its inhabitants, or the\nimportance of its colonies. To argue that he has changed his mind on\nthis as on other points would not be consistent with facts. Since his\nadvent to power the efficiency of the army and navy has been brought to\na higher standard, but their effective numbers have not been increased\nat all; whilst the greatest care and expense have been dedicated to the\nreform of education, nothing being spared that can promote a deeper\nconsciousness of the individual, and an immense scheme is a foot to\nimprove the intellectual and spiritual conditions of adults, involving\nhuge expense by the government and great personal sacrifice by the\nintellectual and artistic classes.\n\nWhen Mussolini was in Forli he could not satisfy any of his realistic\nor idealistic exigencies. His intellectual position as a Socialist\nmade him long for a paradise to come, a dream at best; his nature,\nlike that of many in his province, made him long for actual facts.\nThe position proved a difficult one and he was only kept going by the\nstrength of his convictions which were most sincere. The man who was on\nhis staff in the _Lotta di Classe_ is still a workman and a Socialist;\nand speaks with as much regret for that time as with bitterness for\nMussolini\u2019s \u201cdesertion from the party,\u201d a \u201cdesertion\u201d which nothing\nwill make him see as a consequence of the very sincerity to which he\nascribes Mussolini\u2019s power of fascination. It is this man who has\nfurnished the author of this present book with the clue that made it\npossible to trace back the way through which Mussolini came to realise\nhow unhistorical and, therefore, false was his position.\n\nThe adversaries of the Socialists were continually reproaching them\nfor having invented the class struggle. Just because he was absolutely\nsincere Mussolini minded the accusation very much. For if that was\nso the responsibility was indeed a heavy one. He started, therefore,\nlooking in history for the origin of that struggle. And it was\ninevitable that his Italian mentality should, through the process of\nhis researches, emerge in all its national and personal definiteness;\nthat he should reject, more or less consciously, all that is not\nconcrete and actual. The Italians usually call \u201chistorical\u201d a true\nknowledge or realisation of a given situation of fact, whether past or\npresent; again they call \u201chistorical\u201d the vision of life as the eternal\nalteration of such situations through a process which knows no regress.\n\nTo his relief Mussolini soon found out that the class struggle had\nexisted always and everywhere, and that it was due to social and\nfinancial differences: and this cheered the convinced Socialist in him.\nHis next step was to realise that not only had such a struggle existed\nin Rome, in Athens, and elsewhere, but that it was actually the main\ncause of social progress. And with this the Socialist triumphantly\nexulted.\n\nThe triumph was a short one, however, and the cause of this exultation\nwas to prove a mortal blow to his Socialist faith. If class struggle\nwas the main agent of progress and class differences the cause of\nsuch struggle, there could be no progress, no movement, when class\ndifferences had been abolished. So painful was the conclusion that he\nmust have tried to reject it. When classes should be abolished, every\nthing would be for the best, granted that it could come to be.\n\nHis incursion into the history of the past had given him the one chance\nhis realistic mind had been waiting for to realise that perfection does\nnot exist, that perfection cannot exist, since it is only from the\ndeficiencies of a form of society that the idea of what is to be the\nnext form of society can arise. Obviously, it is by the inconvenience\nof an actual law that the next law is called into being. Life would\nhave, therefore, to be static when the actual state of society would be\nperfect. A question remained and indeed was of moment. Could life be\nstatic?\n\nThe answer could not have waited long for so sharp an observer of life.\nLife is dialectic. The nature of life was manifest to him in the arts.\nDe Sanctis had taught him to see that, whilst the very power of his\nown individuality was compelling him to realise that nothing is done\nbut by single men acting, acting however as members of the various\ncollectivities which determined their personalities. He could no longer\nthink of choosing a religion and imposing it on his followers; they\nhad one at hand which had been prepared for them by history. Little\nby little the truth came. Men did not act for mankind, they acted\nfor their family, for their religion, for their country; they acted\nto better their conditions or to prevent them from getting worse. To\nrelease Man from his traditions was equivalent to taking the roots of a\ntree from the ground, and condemning it to dry, moulder and rot.\n\nWas, then, Socialism a drug of such a kind that it could only do harm?\nSurely it had done wonders for the wretched lower classes of Italy!\nThen the outbreak of the European War spurred him to take the step\nwhich had become inevitable. His mind was ready; his genius had reached\nmaturity; circumstances would do the rest.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is necessary to realise the man and his Dantesque gift for looking\nat the idea and grasping facts all along, for discharging with personal\npassion a most impersonal task. It is equally necessary to realise why\nthe people should have wanted him to succeed and give him that support\nwithout which his genius would have aborted as a sterile longing for\naction. According to Croce the act of will of any single man becomes\nan event and is granted success according to the way in which it\nstands to the will of the whole, and to the actual situation of fact.\nMacchiavelli, it must be borne in mind, tried to do with his Tuscan\nmilitia what Mussolini has achieved, and he only succeeded in realising\nhow out of keeping with the times his scheme had been. Sadly, this\nforerunner of Mussolini, not inferior to him in genius or reading, had\nto sit down and write what the regenerator of Italy would have to do,\nthe necessity of governing in harmony with the times and according to\nthe actual truth of circumstances being one of the principles ever\nrecurring under his pen. \u201cEveryone knows,\u201d says Benedetto Croce, who is\nby no means a Fascist, in the _Philosophy of the Practical_, printed\nfor the first time in 1908, \u201cthat no _vultus instantis tyranni_ can\nextinguish the freedom of the soul; no ruler, be he ever so strong\nand violent, can prevent a rebellion.\u201d If people choose to use the\nword tyrant in the Greek sense of the word they may call Mussolini a\ntyrant, for he is and will be an unconstitutional ruler until the new\ninstitutions are so framed, that the new r\u00e9gime can function normally.\nBut if it is implied by that, as the modern sense of the word allows,\nthat he rules against the people\u2019s will it is merely absurd, and one\nsingle fact could prove the contrary. When two years ago he asked that\na certain sum should be subscribed in dollars towards the paying to the\nUnited States War Debt, the issue was many times what he had asked. It\nwould not be true to facts to omit that although it was not compulsory,\nthere was a good deal of moral pressure made to get the people to\nsubscribe. But surely they did not need to cover it so many times and\nthe excess was indeed most spontaneously subscribed.\n\nThe people of Italy do grumble at many things which are done by the\nFascists, and anybody would do so. It is mainly, however, individual\nactions which are the object of complaint and not laws or public\nservices. For it must be kept in mind that the actual form of\nMussolini\u2019s government has been called into being by the misgovernment\nor rather non-government of the people who preceded him in power, and\nthe country felt the need of being governed in one way or another.\n\nIt has been shown in the first part of this book why Italy was not\ngoverned at all, why no public service could work effectively, why\nforeign policy had to be so inferior to the real position of the\ncountry, why the beautiful peninsula had fallen into a state bordering\non anarchy. It is difficult for an Englishman to realise how a country\ncould fall into such conditions. England has five or six centuries\nof political experience, a length of time more than sufficient to\nproduce electors and representatives able to realise what are the\nduties of the executive as well as those of the legislature. Everybody\nin England is familiar with the process through which political forms\ncome into being. People struggle to reach a certain form of government\nand that moment of dialectic ends when the form is reached; they then\napply it more and more fully and during its application discover its\nlimitations; this second movement ends in criticism of the whole\nthing; finally, people set themselves to remedy its shortcomings. This\nlast moment coincides in the people with the full consciousness of\ndissatisfaction, and in the leaders with a clear understanding of the\nnew tendencies to be satisfied. Thus the people learn to use a new form\nwhilst they are using, then discarding, the one that came before it. In\nItaly nothing of the sort happened. The political leaders would have\nbeen ashamed to be behindhand in what was considered \u201csocial progress.\u201d\n\nThe immediate aftermath of the war in Italy was as we have seen morally\na tragedy. It seemed as if something had died, something spiritual.\nEverything seemed to be going to pieces. Nobody seemed to think, nobody\nseemed to realise that moral forces, a national consciousness had been\nproduced by the general sacrifice. A few heroes were watching over the\nflame lit up in the young souls who had learned truth in the bitter\nexperience of war. They were very few indeed, and they could only get\na hearing through the actual violence with which they fell on the old\npolitical classes, who were intent on convincing the people that the\nwar had to be forgotten as a nightmare, that man must forget it as\nsoon as possible to throw himself again into his pursuit of material\nwell-being.\n\nWhatever the smallness of their number\u2014when Mussolini founded the\nfirst _Fascio_ in 1919 they were 150\u2014they were enough to arouse a deep\necho in the youth of Italy, which was beginning both for spiritual\nand practical reasons to conceive life as an energy, a force, a\nconsciousness transcending the limits set by the interests of the\nindividual, bound to upset violently the quiet and selfish life of the\nman intent on the satisfaction of his most empirical desires.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nMussolini\u2019s belief was that you could make man realise that, if he\nis the centre of the universe, he is so through his relation to the\nuniverse, but that you could not do this by words. The only way to\nmake men realise that selfishness, when it becomes absolute is bound\nto reduce society to atomistic irrelativeness and thereby to anarchy,\nwas, according to him, _action_. If a body of men were ready to do,\nthrough coherent action and sacrifice of their individual wills, what\nthe government ought to have done, then the people would know that\nthey could cease from being bullied by the Bolshevist Socialists and\nfollowers of Don Sturzo, provided they were willing to sacrifice their\nindividual wills, as the men of a team of football do when they want\nto win a match. He felt sure that he could call his countrymen to the\nsacrifice of life and to the acceptance of the harshest discipline if\nthey could but be induced to cease centring their whole mind upon their\nprecious selves. There was, however, no time to organise a religious\nrevival; and his knowledge of men provided him with the one intuition\nthat could be acted upon at the time. He called on them to defend the\nvalue of their own sacrifice in the trenches and in the field. Now that\nwas not cold and distant as the idea of the nation might have proved;\nit was quite real to them and moved them consequently as nothing\nelse could. Through the action of a few hundreds several hundreds of\nthousands were induced to fight for the defence of what had been their\nformer action. The fighting however was only on a very small scale and\nmostly in the provinces where the tyranny of the Reds and Whites had to\nbe broken; the breaking up of that tyranny made the people look upon\nthe Black Shirts as their liberators. Peasant women and children were\nonce more free to go to Church, officers and wounded men were once more\nfree to go about in their uniforms without being attacked or insulted,\nworkmen were once more free to attend their daily work and earn their\nmoney as they liked. The Fascists did not have to fight their way to\npower. They merely took it and were cheered on to taking it.\n\n                   *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs soon as Mussolini was in power he was asked by his ministers what\nhis programme was. He curtly answered \u201cthat it was to realise the full\nvalue of Italy\u2019s sacrifice in the war.\u201d He had no political programme\nand was so indifferent to party distinctions that he took ministers\nfrom every party, choosing them only according to their qualification\nas experts. What he required from them was the maximum of efficiency,\nand the maximum also of personal responsibility.\n\nHis first great move was the reform of education. For him the greatness\nof a country depended on the consciousness of its citizens. The work\nwas naturally entrusted to Giovanni Gentile, who was the greatest\nauthority on pedagogy. He had to face immense difficulty and he did\nit with such energy and indomitable will that the educational reform\nbecame law and was being applied eleven months after the march on\nRome. The main features of it are the re-introduction of religious\nand moral, \u00e6sthetic and practical education in the schools where\nrational instruction had been paramount for twenty years. This was\nin accord with modern philosophy, reinstating in their lawful places\nalong with imagination and intuition, all the activities of Mind\nwhich had not been duly recognised nor sufficiently developed in the\nlast generations. Religion is understood as the one thing capable of\nproviding man with a reasonable outlook upon life as a whole, with a\ndeep consciousness of his own importance as a factor in the world,\nand with an equally deep consciousness of his nonentity as soon as he\nceases to be part of a whole, and considers himself apart from his\nrelations to his family, to his church, to his school, to his country.\n\u00c6sthetic education is meant to develop the faculty of realising with\ngreat definiteness. The child must not describe in his small essays of\nten lines or less something that he cannot draw, and he must not draw\nsomething different from that which he describes. \u201cPractical\u201d is a very\nbad term for the development of judgment in children yet it is the\nlatest word of philosophy which is introduced here.\n\nA good deal of the new education in Italy is done through the teaching\nof history. It may be pointed out, for instance, by the teachers, that\nRussia has had less importance in the development of civilisation than\nEngland or France, though they are so much smaller. This is pointed\nout as being a proof that the importance of a country has nothing to\ndo either with the area it occupies on the map or with the number of\nits inhabitants. Athens and Persia may be opposed in the same way.\nThe child is thus gradually brought to realise the creative power of\nman\u2019s will when it is the \u201cgood-will\u201d of the Scriptures. Such will\nis presented to him as the individual will _with a plus_. That is\nto say that the man who realises his duty towards his family, his\nschool, country and so on, creates something and thereby is really the\ncollaborator of God.\n\nAnother side of this education is the highly ideal notion of actual\nreality which is enforced. The child is taught that school is not a\nparticular building, but any place where there is a master to teach and\npupils to learn. The character of such a place is bound to the two acts\nof teaching and learning, therefore, their liberty is a sacred thing.\nHe who prevents the master from being heard, the pupils from hearing\nhim and learning what he says, destroys such liberty. Ceasing himself\nto listen and to learn, he loses his quality as a pupil, therefore, if\nhis schoolfellows kick him out or the master, to protect their liberty\nand their right to learn, sends him away he has nothing to say, for\nhe has forfeited his rights by ceasing to learn. He is a pupil in as\nfar as he is learning. It is needless to point out that in consequence\nof this a workman is entitled to his rights as such, only so long as\nhe is a contributor to the productivity of the enterprise in which he\nis working; that a landowner is the owner of his land as far as he\ndischarges his duty as such, which is of making such land produce as\nmuch as possible for himself, for his tenants and for the country; that\na man has the rights of a citizen as long as he is conscious of his\nbeing one and discharges all the duties correlative to his rights. The\nGentilian reform with Mussolini\u2019s authority has been able to infuse a\nnew life into the teachers of the elementary schools. They have taken\ntheir work up as an apostolate. Boys and girls know now that manual\nwork is as dignified as any, and that it has the merit of being always\nin demand and being more productive than shop and office work. They\nare taught that they must think, when they choose a calling, of their\nold people whom they may have to help and of the family which they are\ngoing to create. On this particular point the success is wonderful and\nthe author has had several opportunities of realising it. In Rome she\nwas met by the request of a widow, the mother of four children, to\nrecommend her eldest son 15 years old, to a senator to see if he could\nnot find him a job as callboy. Objection was made to the choice of the\njob, so badly paid and so tedious, good at most for a weak or less\nclever lad; the recommendation, however, was promised out of respect\nfor the mother\u2019s choice. But the morning after the boy appeared, rather\nshy, and full of apologies. He had understood that the choice of the\njob had not been approved. Might he say what he felt about it? Then he\nbegan to unburden himself. \u201cYou know, miss, I cannot stand the notion\nof opening doors, answering bells and carrying trays.... I want to have\na real calling.... If I am a trained workman I can go all over the\nworld, or stay here and marry, helping my mother all along, because I\ncan get 35 lire a day and even more. If I am a real workman ...\u201d He\nmade up his mind to be a printer and was introduced to a publisher.\n\nReligious and patriotic as it is, education in Italy is, moreover,\ngrounded on a deep sense of what are the family duties of man, and on\na few sound ideas of what is economic in every man\u2019s life. Economy\nis by Mussolini transformed into a moral value. In this again we see\nhis political genius going to meet Croce\u2019s theories without knowing\nanything about them. For Croce, an action is economic when it is due\nto the will of a well-informed individual, it becomes moral when the\nindividual\u2019s act of will is consonant with the will of the whole. The\nmost typical example is that known under the name of _Campagna del\nGrano_, which is meant to induce the landowner and his tenants to use\nthe most scientific means of increasing the production of the soil,\nin order that the country should be either freed from the enormous\nexpenditure of wheat importation or have it balanced by the silk,\nwine, fruit and oil which should be exported in greater quantities.\nTravelling teachers go from village to village and are met willingly by\nthe peasants whom they address in the most homely way. First technical\nsuggestions are made with statistics of results obtained in the nearest\nfields of experiment. Then they are discussed with the men. Finally,\nthese are told that the result will be good for them as they will get\nmore out of their land without their work being much increased, but\nthat they must above all, remember that they will discharge the first\nof their civic duty; their productive activity is as constructive as\nthat of the great scientist and as noble as their own life in the\ntrenches during the war. You must no longer plough, sow, reap for your\nown self, that is to say exclusively for your material self, but for\nthe state, which is that same empirical self _plus_ its transcendental\ncomplement. Thereby ploughing, sowing and reaping are no longer the\nwork of Man, slave of his material needs, but of Man transcending\nthem, without disregarding them, however, and lifting his daily\noccupation to the dignity of a moral realisation of his own economic\nvalue. The state must, indeed, according to such ideas, be universally\npresent as a moral factor in every branch of its citizen\u2019s activity. It\nis, in fact, the all-pervading consciousness that man must have of his\ncitizenship which expresses itself as government.\n\nSuch an assertion is believed by Fascists to be quite acceptable to\nthe people and where the author has had the possibility of testing\nthe truth of it she had the impression that in a little less than a\nyear the peasants were generally getting used to it, and many acting\nupon it although they could not have explained it at all. This _moral_\nshare of the state in every economic interest is that which has made\nit possible for the government to work out the scheme of the National\nSyndicates. This has nothing to do with the Fascist Syndicates which\nwere until recently opposed to the Socialist trade unions as one\npolitical organisation to another. The new Syndicates are to be of\nno political colour at all; their action is to be purely economic\nand they are nearly compulsory.[12] Every man must belong to one of\nthem either as a labourer, a capitalist or an intellectual, the last\ncategory containing most professional men. When any economic conflict\narises\u2014causes of conflict have been reduced to the lowest possible\nnumber\u2014the Syndicate of employers sends its delegates to meet the\ndelegate of the Syndicate of employed. Such delegates are mostly the\nsecretaries of the Syndicates and must belong to the calling of\nthe men whose interests are entrusted to them; then they must have\nqualified and hold a diploma testifying to their technical and economic\nknowledge of the problems that they may have to treat. The fact that\nthey must belong to the trade they exercise and actually exercise it,\nsweeps away all the professional secretaries of trade unions, who,\nliving out of their leadership of the workmen, are ready to do anything\nto retain their posts. No less important is the necessity of their\ntechnical and economical qualification. Yet _as for the moment_ there\nare no such qualified people to be had and the people are not yet used\nto choose their representative according to their value in the trade\nand common-sense _they are appointed by the government. And this is one\nweak point of the organisation_, although it is obviously a temporary\none.\n\nFor the rest it is simply wonderful. The delegates of the two\nsyndicates\u2014employed and employers\u2014meet, and they discuss the point\nat issue. Usually they come to an agreement because the greatest\nconsideration is taken of the economic facts, local conditions of\nlife, supply and demand of work and so on. Failing agreement, the\nsyndicates themselves meet and discuss the matter. If the agreement is\nnot possible the delegates meet again, but in the presence of a special\nmagistrate, who studies the case and whose conclusions are enforced by\nlaw. No lock-out or strike is even contemplated; they have become an\noffence against the community, and as such liable to various penalties.\nMen are free to produce, but not to destroy.\n\nThis brings our study to a conclusion, since to deal with any one point\nof those which have been merely sketched here would require a whole\nvolume. The people\u2019s will is free so long as what they wish is for the\ncommon good and their own good, but it is not free to want anything\nthat is either not for the common good or against it. Football is still\nthe best example. The men of a team freely want to win the match and\nfreely do what they are ordered to do by their captain, but they are\nnot free to show off or to spoil the game, to spite the captain or any\none of the men.\n\nMussolini makes no mystery about it; his party has come into the\nworld as the negation of the Rights of Man as they were formulated\nin the eighteenth century; as the negation of Liberty as it has been\nunderstood, that is to say abstracting it from its correlative term\nLaw; as the negation of democracy as far as democracy is understood,\nthrough a wrong interpretation of its Greek root taking people as\nequivalent to lower class, is quantity opposed to quality\u2014whereas it is\nequivalent to the nation as a whole; as the negation of the equality of\n1789 which was materially and mechanically conceived.\n\nYet such negations are the preliminary stage to affirmations\u2014the\naffirmation of the rights of man _arising from his consciousness of\nduty_; of liberty as the positive term of Law, yet as inseparable from\nit as light from shadow; of democracy understood as the impossibility\nof any class willing to rule by force over other classes, be it by\nthe force of wealth, arms, or numbers; finally, the equality of men,\nboth moral and legal, according to which every man\u2019s rights must be\nproportioned to what he does for the community.\n\nThe great new feature of it is the idea of state and citizen upon which\nthe whole Mussolinian legislation and government is based although it\nseems never to mention it. Whilst in the Anglo-Saxon and French views\nof political reality the State is a function of the citizen; whilst in\nthe German view, whether in its Imperialistic or Communistic form, the\ncitizen is a function of the state, for modern Italy the state is the\nconsciousness of the citizen transcending itself and postulating itself\nin religious objectivity.\n\nNo class differences, no financial differences may therefore be\nrendered permanent by the State. No care must be spared that may ensure\ntheir eternal mutability. Differences are necessary to permit moral,\nsocial, and economic progress; but their fertility lies in their\nelasticity. If \u201cAvanti\u201d was not the motto of Socialism the Fascists\ncould make it theirs; as it is, reintroducing faith and belief at the\nbasis of man\u2019s life they seem to point to higher moral, political and\neconomical conquests. The only motto that can befit the black shirts\nmovement is therefore _Sursum corda_.\n\n\n\n\n[ FOOTNOTES ]\n\n[1] The author wishes to state that being a Nationalist herself she has\nbeen unable to assume towards Nationalism the purely critical attitude\nthat she has kept towards Socialism.\n\n[2] Just as the idea of family in any one individual makes him feel\nthat the rest of the people are to him _not his family_, are to him\nobjective reality, whilst his people are to him THE FAMILY, and part of\nhis subjective reality.\n\n[3] The author has lived in Italy as a student since May, 1913, in\nconstant contact with people of all classes.\n\n[4] To refer to one single district and to facts directly known by\nthe author, it may be stated that in May, 1920, most of the province\nof Udine having been organised under Don Sturzo\u2019s white banner, the\npeasants had their minds perverted by the very priests to whom they\nhad looked hitherto for moral guidance, to the extent of starving\ntheir own cattle, of ceasing to milk their cows, leaving hundreds of\nbeasts howling day and night for a week. (Some of the land-owners,\nabove all those who were sportsmen, did their best, at the risk of\ntheir life, to relieve the poor animals, but could not manage to go\nround the stables every day.) The present writer is a Roman Catholic,\na friend of peasants wherever she goes and an animal lover; she could\nnot therefore speak with equanimity of a party who used the priests of\nher own church to speak words of violence on the steps of the altar\nor in the parsonage-houses, making bullies of country folk she has\nknown for thirteen years as excellent people, looking after their\ncattle with so much humanity that they never sit down to a meal before\ntheir beasts are fed. It is therefore better to state a few facts with\nnames and dates. In May, 1920, in San Martino al Tagliamento, Count\nFrancesco di Prampero was sequestered in his house with four men of\nthe white legion mounting guard on his doors, to compel him to yield\nto the will of the priests and their followers. The same might be said\nof all the land-owners of the villages where Don Sturzism flourished.\nBut Count Francesco di Prampero is selected here as being such a friend\nof peasants, that he never lived with his family, since he was in his\nteens preferring the company of his tenants, although he belongs to the\nmost ancient aristocracy.\n\nIn the same year groups of followers of Don Sturzo and some _Arditi\nBianchi_ went about with their white flag compelling people to kiss the\nhem of it and caning those who would not, the _Arditi Bianchi_, who\nwere the armed legion of the party, being ready to shoot the obdurate\nmen or women. As a matter of fact, the most terrible harm was that of\nthe sacraments, in a province as religious as that of Udine, so that it\nis no wonder that Benedict XV, asked by the present writer if he could\napprove such things, was absolutely shocked and let her understand that\nsince the war it was his greatest torment.\n\nSpace compels to bring this note to a conclusion, and it may be said\nthat one of the foremost lieutenants of Don Sturzo, in that Province,\nwas Monsignor Gori, a canon of the cathedral of Udine, a man who\nrejoiced over the defeat of his country at Caporetto, befriended the\ninvaders, and betrayed two women who had said to him that they were\npraying for the victory of the allies, so that on his denunciation they\nwere condemned by the Austrians. This may give a fair idea of what\nwas a party that took such a man not only in its ranks, but as a main\nagent, knowing him to be even then, before the advent of Fascism, in\nantagonism with his Archbishop, whose patriotism has since brought upon\nhim the underhand persecution of the clergy that had been contaminated\nby Don Sturzism even in its ecclesiastical discipline.\n\n[5] See Francisco de Sancti\u2019s _Storia della Letteratura Italiana_,\nLateza, Bari, vol. ii, chap. i.\n\n[6] _Philosophy of the Practical._ 1912. Macmillan, London.\n\n[7] Quoted by Wildon Carr\u2019s _The Philosophy of Mind_ of Benedetto Croce.\n\n[8] _Op. cit._\n\n[9] _Op. cit._, page 491.\n\n[10] The same can be said of the Israelite community.\n\n[11] Negativity does not imply unreality.\n\n[12] The way in which they are compulsory is not quite simple; but the\nfact is that when the new institutions are framed men will perhaps get\ntheir political rights as members of the corporations.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  Alberti, Leone Battista, 87\n\n  Alfieri, 168\n\n  Ardigo, 164\n\n  Aretino, 101\n\n  Ariosto, 101\n\n  Aristotle, 65, 66, 67, 94, 107, 108, 172, 216\n\n\n  Bacon, Francis, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 92, 93, 120, 146, 191\n\n  Bacon, Roger, 64\n\n  Bainville, 114, 115\n\n  Bayle, 146, 147\n\n  Beltramelli, 212\n\n  Berkeley, 149\n\n  Bodin, 94\n\n  Boccacio, 81\n\n  Bassuet, 82\n\n  Bismarck, 25, 26\n\n\n  Cairoli, 21, 22\n\n  Campanella, 100, 101, 105\n\n  Carducci, 43\n\n  Carlo, Alberto, 14\n\n  Cavour, 10, 14, 33, 185\n\n  Cherbury, Herbert of, 142\n\n  Corneille, 116\n\n  Cola di Rienzo, 81\n\n  Costa, Andria, 27, 28, 90, 215\n\n  Carradini, 30, 32, 33, 40\n\n  Crispi, 20, 24\n\n  Croce, 88, 89, 125, 130, 170\u2013188, 189, 216, 222\n\n  Cromwell, 96, 99, 100\n\n  Cumberland, 141\n\n  Cuoco, Vincenzo, 122, 155, 156, 157, 158, 161, 162, 168\n\n\n  Dante, 78, 79, 80, 81, 168, 212, 213\n\n  D\u2019Annunzio, 48, 52\n\n  D\u2019Azeglio Massimo, 11\n\n  Depretis, 25\n\n  De Ruggiero, G., 163\n\n  De Sanctis, 16, 77, 83, 101, 104, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 170,\n        171, 172, 216\n\n  Descartes, 64, 66, 67, 68, 110, 114\u2013124, 126, 146, 191\n\n\n  Ercole, 89\n\n\n  Federzoni, 30, 32, 33, 40\n\n  Ficino Marsilio, 87\n\n  Fiorentino, 164\n\n  Frederick II, 77, 87\n\n  Fichte, 213\n\n\n  Garibaldi, 10, 11, 20, 24, 33\n\n  Gentile, 35, 59, 60, 76, 125, 130, 132, 171, 188\u2013210\n\n  Gioberti, 16, 159, 162, 163, 164, 165, 171\n\n  Ghibellines, 78, 79, 83\n\n  Giolitti, 37, 52\n\n  Grotius, 93, 94, 95, 127\n\n  Guarini, 105\n\n  Guicciardini, 103, 104, 111, 112\n\n  Guelphs, 78, 79, 83\n\n\n  Hegel, 62, 76, 98, 154, 159, 165, 208, 209, 213\n\n  Hobbes, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 109, 111, 122, 127, 129, 146\n\n  Hume, 98, 146\n\n\n  Johnson, 82\n\n\n  Kant, 140, 149, 154, 162, 164, 203, 208\n\n\n  Louis XIV, 114, 115, 116, 124\n\n  Landino, 87\n\n  L\u00e9vy Bruhl, 62\n\n  Leibniz, 124, 163\n\n  Locke, 100, 125, 132, 138, 189\n\n\n  Machiavelli, 40, 41, 42, 86, 88, 89, 90, 101, 102, 103, 110, 112,\n        168, 172, 174\n\n  M\u00e2le, 69, 72\n\n  Mazzini, 11, 14, 20, 33, 155, 159, 160, 161, 168, 185, 215\n\n  Malespini, A., 77\n\n  Maritain, 117\n\n  Marx, 62\n\n  Monnier, Ph., 87\n\n  Melzi, 157\n\n  Mill, 164\n\n  Michelangelo, 166\n\n  Minghetti, 24\n\n  Montaigne, 146\n\n  Montesquieu, 147, 149\n\n  Mussolini, 29, 35, 37, 43, 76, 77, 88, 103, 156, 157, 158, 159, 170,\n        171, 177, 180, 186\n\n\n  Nitti, 52\n\n  Newton, 146\n\n\n  Orange, William, 100, 138\n\n\n  Pascal, 146\n\n  Pagano, 155\n\n  Plato, 135\n\n  Plutarch, 133\n\n  Poliziano, 167\n\n  Petrarch, 80, 81, 83\n\n  Piccolomini, 82\n\n  Pisano Nicolo, 76\n\n\n  Rosmini, 16, 159, 162, 164, 171\n\n  Reggio, E., 75\n\n  Rousseau, 107, 126, 128, 138, 145, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 155, 207\n\n\n  Salandra, 37, 42\n\n  Saitta, 149\n\n  San Giuliano, 37\n\n  Sarfatti, 212\n\n  Savonarola, 162\n\n  Scholasticism, 63, 64, 108, 111, 119, 128\n\n  Shaftesbury, 141, 142\n\n  Sonnino, 37, 42\n\n  Solmi, 76\n\n  Spaventa, 164, 165\n\n  Spinoza, 89, 129\n\n  Sturzo, and his party, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 225\n\n  St. Anselm, 64\n\n  St. Augustin, 119, 121\n\n  St. Thomas, 64, 94, 108, 129, 208\n\n\n  Tasso, 105\n\n  Toland, 142, 143\n\n  Tocco, 164\n\n\n  Vico, 65, 80, 98, 111, 124\u2013136, 149, 154, 163, 165, 168, 172, 216\n\n  Villari, 163\n\n  Vittorio, Emmanuele, 14\n\n\n  Wildon Carr, 190\n\n\n                  MADE AND PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY\n            THE GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED, LETCHWORTH, HERTS\n\n\n                      ~~~ Transcriber\u2019s notes ~~~\n\nNo attempt has been made to correct or normalize the spelling of proper\nnames or non-English text. The index is in original order. Footnotes\nhave been gathered at the end of the text, before the index. The\nincluded cover is a modified version of the book\u2019s title page and is\nplaced in the public domain.","title":"The pedigree of fascism : $b A popular essay on the Western philosophy of politics","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":67985}