Part 21

Besides articles and essays in American and English magazines and reviews, the following works of Croce have been translated into English: the four volumes of the _Filosofia dello Spirito_, the essay on Hegel, the _Essence of Æsthetics_, and the essays on _Ariosto, Shakespeare, and Corneille_, by Douglas Ainslie; the essay on Vico, by R. G. Collingwood, and the essays on Historical Materialism, by C. M. Meredith. But the English or American student of Croce ought to rely as little as possible on translations; the reading of the Italian text will be found comparatively easy, on the basis of a good acquaintance with Latin or with French. The labour entailed by the surmounting of the first difficulties will be largely repaid by the advantages gained in coming into direct contact with Croce's thought, and by the acquisition of at least a reading knowledge of Italian.

For the vast critical literature on Croce, scattered through the literary and philosophical reviews of Europe and of America during the last twenty years, we are compelled again to refer the reader to Castellano's book. We shall only mark out Croce's own autobiographical notes, the Contributo listed above, which, however, having been printed for private circulation only, is not generally accessible except in the French translation printed in the _Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale_, XXVI, pp. 1-40. The following are the only books which give a general view of Croce's thought: G. Prezzolini, _Benedetto Croce_, Naples, 1909; E. Chiocchetti, _La filosofia di B. Croce_, Florence, 1915; H. Wildon Carr, _The Philosophy of B. Croce_, London, 1917. The first is an able, but very cursory sketch; the second examines Croce's philosophy from the standpoint of neoscholasticism; the third is an ample summary written by a distinguished writer well acquainted with the various currents of modern thought. Each of them ought to be read with a critical and discriminating eye.

In the English-speaking world, Croce's fame rests emphatically on his æsthetics, and its applications to literary criticism. His influence on English and American critical thought has already gone much deeper than a mere list of writings on his theories would show; especially in England, his ideas are, so to speak, in the air, and appear in many writers who have no direct knowledge of his work. The best exposition of this phase of his philosophy is to be found in E. F. Carritt's book, _The Theory of Beauty_, 1914, chap. XIV. The writings of A. B. Walkley, and of J. E. Spingam, contain the most vigorous prosecution of his thought as applied, respectively, to English and to American scholarship and criticism.

For the general history of Italian thought, to which many a reference is made in the course of this book, the best helps, besides Croce's essay on Vico, and B. Spaventa, _La filosofia italiana_, recently reprinted, Bari, 1909, are the historical works of Giovanni Gentile, and especially his _Storia della filosofia italiana_, Milano, n. d. Gentile is one of the most profound and earnest modern European thinkers, and it is desirable that his theoretical works, similar in tendency to, but widely divergent in temper from those of Croce, should become better known to the Anglo-Saxon world. Two of his books, _La Riforma dell' Educazione_ and _Teoria generale dello Spirito_, are soon to appear in English. Croce's judgment on Gentile's Actual Idealism is expressed in _Una discussione tra filosofi amici_, in _Conversazioni Critiche_, II, pp. 67-95. But a complete understanding of the vital relations between the two thinkers can be gathered only through an adequate knowledge of both Croce's and Gentile's work.