all his predecessors and then consider him in relation with all his followers-in short, that you must steep yourself in that atmosphere of idealistic culture in which the Hegelian philosophy was formed and developed.

But in the case of Croce's book this reply is not in point, for this book cannot demand on the part of its critics any such preparation-a preparation which, in the last analysis, would immobilize the critic for so long a period that at its close he would have to admit-either in order to avoid confessing that he had wasted his time or as a result of slow intoxication or auto-suggestion-that Hegel was a great man and that his philosophy, though perhaps in need of still further development, will remain the best of all possible philosophies. For Croce's book is intended to serve as an introduction to the Hegelian system, as the indispensable means by which one may prepare himself to read Croce's translations of the works of Hegel. In other words, his book must stand or fall on its own merits; and if it is to attain the purpose for which it was written, it must be intelligible even to one who has not seen the title-pages of the Phenomenology of the Spirit and the Logic.

I know that Croce and his parrots are fond of saying that men who do not or will not read Hegel are intellectually lazy. The accusation would be in point if the men in question, while

not studying Hegel, did not study any one else either. But Croce knows that the men in question spend the time saved by neglecting the Encyclopedia of Philosophic Science not at the billiard table, but in reading and in studying other books which may be as difficult and exhausting as those of Hegel-and more fruitful.

Indeed, we may well apply to philosophers what Jesus said of trees: "By their fruits ye shall know them." There are men who have spent a great part of their lives in the endeavor to read and understand Hegel. And if the writings of these men appear, as they usually do appear, to be pedantic, obscure, and meaningless, then I have reason to suspect that the reading of Hegel is no such elixir of philosophic life as it is claimed to be, and I may well prefer to study the malady in others rather than to expose myself to the infection.

William James compared Hegelianism to a mouse-trap. It reminds me rather of the fable of the sick lion who could not leave his tent to hunt other beasts, and had therefore commissioned the fox to bring the other beasts to see him, so that he might devour them at his convenience. The gracious invitation was given to the ass, among others; but when that wise creature came to the threshold of the lion's den he observed that the ground bore many prints of feet that had entered in, but none of feet that

had come out-and he turned back. The ass was always a philosophic beast: witness Buridan and Bruno!

Croce's book makes it unnecessary for usfor the moment at least-to enter the trap, or the den, since it is supposed, as I have said, to be intelligible without previous reading of Hegel, and since it is at the same time a select sample of the products of the Neapolitan branch of Hegel & Co.

Let us see, then, what there is that we may regard as significant and as valid in those elements of Hegel's philosophy which, according to Croce, still persist. Some time ago, in an article in the Critica entitled Are We Hegelians? Croce besought for his favorite philosopher at least a definitive burial, a first-class funeral. For my part, I am quite willing to drive a few more nails into the coffin.

I

The two great merits of Hegel, according to his latest champion, are these: that he demonstrated the existence of a method peculiar to philosophy and different from the methods of art or the physical and mathematical sciences; and that he formulated that dialectic (the coexistence of contraries or the identity of opposites) which was already implicit in certain ear

lier philosophers, and was indeed foretokened in a general way by the whole course of philosophy.

Philosophy, then, differs from all other products of the human mind in that it concerns itself with concepts which are universal and concrete, unlike the intuitions of art, the ecstasies of mysticism, or the representative generalities of science.

Certain objections are, however, to be brought against Croce's thesis that philosophy must perforce have a method of its own since the other activities of the human spirit (mathematics, natural science, history, art, economics, ethics) have each its own method. In the first place, the methods of the several other activities which he enumerates are not entirely distinct, since mathematical methods are employed in natural science, artistic methods in history, naturalistic or mathematical methods in economics, and so on. Clearly, then, it is by no means true that each particular discipline has always its own specific method.

Furthermore, Croce does not discuss, and apparently has not even considered, a hypothesis which is perfectly possible and in my opinion altogether probable: the hypothesis that philosophy may fairly be considered as consisting of those problems which concern several sciences at the same time, which are, as it were, crossroads or neutral zones of two or three or more

sciences in which case philosophy might well be content with the methods employed in mathematics and in the natural sciences.

But I prefer to turn to the question whether the method which Hegel and Croce attribute to philosophy has any real value in itself, and whether, if so, it is really unlike the other methods.

We must try, then, to understand this "philosophic thinking" which is different from all other activities of the mind, and which is one of those things against which-so Croce writes-"rebellion seems to me impossible, though I recognize that they should be taught more and more widely, since they constitute, as it were, the neglected a b c of philosophy." But this a b c is by no means easy to understand, even when one brings to the task, as I have done, the utmost resolution and good will.

When I am told that philosophy is concerned with concepts, that is to say, with abstract notions and not with particular representations or personal sentiments, I can understand perfectly well; but when I am told that these concepts are not general concepts like those of science, but universal concepts, then I am lost. For if the term "universal concept" does not indicate, just as the term "general concept" does, certain qualities common to a definite and limited class of objects, what then can it indicate? The most