THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OP GIOVANNI GENTILE

HENRY SILTON HARRIS

B.A., Oxford, 1949

THESIS
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY
IN THE GRADUATE COLLEGE OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, 195-1

URBANA, ILLINOIS
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

T H E GRADUATE COLLEGE

Ootobe-r ??, 1Q5?

I HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY

SUPERVISION R V HENRY S I L T ON HARRIS

ENTITLED THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF GIOVANNI GENTILE

BE ACCEPTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR

THE DEGREE OF_ DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

<D. UJ. C L k i J l A
<gd of Department
Recommendation coijcttPFed info

f) Uh Cj.f.UiJr Committee
qfe&Mastds(p/Z***~
on
T>Vja^j.i L u i iJLO.i. S~Psftg.|. Final Examination!

^f. ^T\y&1^3^£si*X>€L^>

t Required for doctor's degree but not for master's.

M440
 THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF GIOVANNI GENTILE

Abstract of a Thesis
"by
Henry S i l t o n H a r r i s

This thesis i s a c r i t i c a l examination of the s o c i a l ,

p o l i t i c a l and educational a s p e c t s of the philosophical outlook
known as Actual Idealism. But s i n c e the metaphysical foundation
of this view l i e s in i t s a b s o l u t e i n s i s t e n c e upon the unity of
theory and practice, and s i n c e the o r i g i n a l i t y of the p o s i t i o n
arises largely from the way i n which Giovanni Gentile, the
leader of the actual i d e a l i s t s c h o o l , expounded t h i s u n i t y ,
any examination of the p r a c t i c a l a s p e c t s of h i s philosophy
becomes of necessity a study of the philosophy as a whole:
and hence this thesis" may a l s o be regarded as an introduction
to the siudy of G e n t i l e ' s philosophy i n general.
The f i r s t chapter gives some account of the place of
Gentile's theory in the h i s t o r y of philosophy and shows how h i s
view of the fundamental problem of philosophy a r i s e s out of h i s
interpretation of the h i s t o r y of C h r i s t i a n philosophy and
p a r t i c u l a r l y of German and I t a l i a n Idealism. In the second
chapter some of the general consequences of t h i s view are b r i e f l y
developed.
After these f i r s t two i n t r o d u c t o r y chapters the main body
of the thesis follows c o n s i s t i n g of s i x chapters in which the
 2

whole body of Gentile's writings on society and. education is

analysed. The third and fourth chapters treat of the gradual
emergence of his mature theories between 1900 and about 1920,
at first in scattered polemical essays and then in more syste-
matic works such as the Summary of Educational The ory and the
Foundations of the Philosophy of Law.
In chapters V and VI Gentile's political career is
discussed from the time of his first essays as a political
journalist during the First World War down to the outbreak of
the Second War. Gentile was Minister of Public Instruction in
Mussolini's first Cabinet; and he joined the Fascist Party in
1923, becoming thereafter one of its most prominent publicists.
He justified his lifelong adherence to this allegiance by
claiming that Fascism was a practical realization of the
ideals prefigured in his own philosophy. It was one of the
principal aims of this thesis to discover how far this
argument rested upon a fair estimation of his own philosophy
and of the actual policies of Mussolini's government.
Chapter VII discusses the later developments in Gentile's
social philosophy which led to the final systematic statement
of his views in the Genesis and Structure of Society. A
conspectus and discussion of this, his last work, is provided
in Chapter VIII, together with some account of the circum-
stances in which it was written and of the tragic close of
Gentile's career.
As a result of this lengthy investigation three main
conclusions are formulated:
 3

(i) that two quite different interpretations of

Actual Idealism are possible and that both can be
found in Gentile's work;
(ii) that only one of these interpretations is of
any real speculative value and that Fascist Idealism
which rests upon the other is a self-stultifying
perversion;
(iii) that the true interpretation of Actual Idealism
provides a sound foundation for the basic tenets of
representative democracy.
 iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many teachers and friends have helped directly and

indirectly to give this thesis whatever merits it may possess.
It would be impossible to name them all: but I owe a special
debt of gratitude to Professor M. H. Fisch who has given me
constant guidance, advice, and encouragement in the arduous task
of composition.
Much of the material on 'which this thesis is based is of
a fugitive and occasional nature. A large number of libraries
all over the United States and some in Italy have assisted the
prosecution of my researches by loaning books or supplying micro-
films: and the staff of the University of Illinois library have
been uniformly sympathetic and helpful both in procuring this
outside help and in making available their own very extensive
resources.
 IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter page no.
INTRODUCTION 1
I. THE PERSPECTIVE OF ACTUAL IDEALISM 5
1. Idealism and common sense realism 5
2. The "Problem of Christianity" 13.
3. Kant,and the synthesis a priori 16
4. The Hegelian synthesis .. ,t 22
5. Bertrando Spaventa 24
6. The Method of Pure Immanence 28
7. Gentile and Croce 35
II. "CONCEZIONE UMANISTICA DEL MONDO" 40
1. The "abstractness" of Actual Idealism 40-
2. The Social Aspect,of Actual Idealism 43
3. The theory of Man in the Summary of
Educational Theory 47
III. THE GROWTH OF GENTILE'S HUMANISM 61
1. Forward with Hegel 61
2. Gentile and Marx 69
3. Education and Culture 78
4. Liberty and Authority in School and State ... 85
5. Religion in School and State 99
IV. EDUCATION, LAW, AND CULTURE 114
1.. Prospect and retrospect 114
2. The Child and the Family 117
3. The School and the Pupil 125
4. The Philosophy of Law (i): The theory of
Good and EvIT 141
5. The Philosophy of Law (ii): War and Society
in interiore homine 147
6. The Philosophy of Law (.iii) : The theory of
Force and Law 162
7. The Philosophy of Law (iv): Law and Morality . 171
8. The theory of Monarchy 180
9. The State and Culture 184
V. THE GREAT WAR AND THE AFTERMATH 193
1. War and Nationalism 193
2. The League of Nations and the Armistice .... 205
3. La vigilia 211
4. Towards the Riforma Gentile 216
Chapter page no.
VI. THE "PHILOSOPHER OF FASCISM" 222
1. The Riforma Gentile 222
2. From Liberalism to Fascism 231
3. Constitutional reform and the Corporate State . 246
4. 'Fascist' Culture 252
5. The Doctrine of Fascism 256
6. The beginnings of disillusion 264
7. The Concordat 271
8. Vox clamantis 277
9. Fascist Imperialism 292
10. Epilogue 296 "
NOTE: The breach between Gentile and Croce . . . . 302
VII. POLITICS AND ECONOMICS IN THE ETHICAL STATE . . . . 305
1. Croce and the "Ethical State" 305
2. Economics and Ethics 315
3. Politics and Law 321
4. Forward from Hegel 325
VIII. "THE GENESIS AND STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY" 332
1. Biographical and historical background 332
2. The Transcendental Society and the socius . . . 342
3. The State 354
4. Politics and the "humanism of Labour" 363
5. Life and Death 373
6. Aftermath: The Fascist Social Republic . . . . 378-
IX. THE REAL AND THE IDEAL 388
!• Amicus Plato sed magis arnica Veritas 388
2. Idealism and Positivism 390
3. 'Fascist' Idealism . 400
4. Actual Idealism and the theory of democracy . . 410
BIBLIOGRAPHY 421
Section I: Writings of Gentile 422
Section II: Critical and expository studies
of Actual Idealism. . 444
Section III: Comparative Materials 447
Section IV: Miscellaneous 449
VITA 450
 1

INTRODUCTION

Giovanni Gentile was born at Castelvetrano in Sicily on

May 30, 1875. He was thus nine years younger than the other
great figure of the revival of idealism in Italy, Benedetto Croce.
He never became widely known among the ordinary educated public
outside of Italy; and even among philosophers a knowledge of his
philosophy has always been comparatively rare, perhaps because
much less of his work than of Croce's has been translated. None-
theless he has not lacked students, even in Anglo-Saxon countries,
and there exist already in English several studies of various
aspects of his Actual Idealism.
I do not believe, however, that anyone has previously
attempted, either in English or in any other language, a critical
analysis of his doctrine of the unity of thought and action. For
this neglect there are two principal reasons. In the first
place, although the doctrine forms the core of his philosophy,
and appears in all of his works, Gentile never expounded it in
any detail or developed the consequences in theoretical form
prior to the third edition of his Foundations of the Philosophy •
of La?/ (1937). The theory of society and of politics which he
erected upon this basic doctrine only received its final, more or
less definitive expression in his last work The Genesis and
Structure of Society; and this v/ork alone, among all the great
mass of his writings on the subject, deserves the title

See the Bibliography to this thesis, Section 2.

 2

systematic. Secondly, Gentile's association with Fascism, of

which he was an ardent supporter from the time of the Revolution
right down to his own assassination in 1943 in the last death
throes of the Fascist Social Republic, prejudiced the issue.
Almost everyone outside of Italy followed the lead given them by
Croce, and dismissed Actual Idealism as a philosophy of irrational
activism.
The aim of the present study is to set aside the polemical
prejudices arising from Gentile's political activity, and to
consider his political and social theory on its merits as a
theory. In order to do this it is necessary to return to the
first germs of his social thought in his earliest writings; then
we must see clearly how these germs developed; and finally we
must examine Gentile's own application of his theories in his
practical politics. For although, as I have said, our aim is to
set aside political prejudice, it is of the first importance to
understand just how his theories were related to his own beliefs
and actions. Without such an understanding we cannot distinguish
polemical prejudice from objective judgement.
In one sense, then, our main problem is to see how far
Actual Idealism can be disentangled from its Fascist connections.
In no small degree, what is here attempted is a rescue operation,
an essay in salvage. For if a theory which unifies thought and
action really leads in practice to the sort of policies and
methods that the Fascists adopted then I do not suppose that
many honest men will ever be convinced by it, no matter how
persuasively the case is argued. Indeed we must all hope and
believe that this is the case, for there is no sure defence
 3.

against the abuse of human reason and human liberty in the realm
of ideas, apart from the practical common sense of ordinary
educated citizens.
In so far as it is successful this study should provide an
adequate introduction to Gentile's last work. A critical con-
spectus of The Genesis and Structure of Society is given in the
eighth chapter: but it must be emphasized that the discussion
therein contained is no substitute for the original work. All
that I have tried to provide is a substitute for the rest of
Gentile's writings for the purposes of one who wishes to under-
stand that book. A glance at the first section of the Bibli-
ography will show that this, in itself, was no light task.
In one important respect, however, my task in studying
Gentile has been easier than that of any of my predecessors.
Where each of them had to compile a Gentile bibliography for him-
self, I had the advantage of possessing already a very thorough
and painstaking inventory of Gentile's writings compiled by
Signor Bellezza for the Gentile Foundation for Philosophic
Studies.^ Considering the fugitive nature of much of the material
I had to use it would have been impossible for me to adopt the
method that 1 have adopted without the assistance of his work.
In my own Bibliography the first section is almost entirely,
and the second section mainly, based upon it. Each of Gentile's
writings is referred to throughout this thesis, by the number
which Bellezza has assigned to it; and this number is given

Vito A. Bellezza: Bibliografia degli scritti di Giovanni

Gen tile, (Giovanni Gentile: La vita e_ il pensiero, VoTume III,
Florence, Sansoni, 1950).
at the beginning of the corresponding entry in the first section
of my Bibliography.
Finally I should say a word about the translation of the
many passages which I have quoted. In general I have preferred
to make my own translations, though I have not hesitated to
consult any previous translations known to me. But in citing
from either of the major works for which an English translation
exists, I have always taken care to give a reference to the
translation in order that any reader who does not know Italian
may follow up my quotation if he chooses. Anyone who does so
will observe that in the case of Professor Wildon Carr's trans-
lation of The Theory of Mind as Pure Act the divergence between
his versions and mine is always very slight.-^ For two passages,
where the original Italian was not available, I have rather
unhappily adopted the very faithful but inelegant versions of
Professor Finer, In making my own translations I have tried to
strike a balance between the letter of Gentile's Italian and
the spirit both of his philosophy and of the English language.

•^Because of the existence of this translation—which is of

a very high quality—I have also, with extreme unwillingness,
used his title for Gentile's Teoria generale dello spirito come
atto puro (General Theory of the Spirit as Pure Act")"! Elsewhere
I have always used 'spirit' to translate the Italian spirito.
 5

CHAPTER I

THE PERSPECTIVE OF ACTUAL IDEALISM

1. Idealism and common sense realism.

Gentile's philosophy forms a systematic whole:, his aim in
every specific philosophical investigation that he undertook was
to exhibit the a priori rationality of a particular phase of
human experience. Not all of his attempts to do this have seemed,
even to friendly critics, to be equally successful; his social
and political theories, in particular, have been regarded as
unsatisfactory in relation to his speculative philosophy. His
intention is clear however; and no one can hope to understand even
the alleged inconsistencies of his social philosophy, who has not
taken pains, first of all, to understand his basic metaphysics of
experience.
To do this is not easy. The very simplicity of his doctrine
of the "pure act of thinking"—on which the whole system rests, or
should rest—makes it hard to grasp. He defines his problem so
strictly that it is difficult to keep one's attention fixed on it
firmly and not be distracted by extraneous considerations. Per-
haps, indeed, he is too strict and his-philosophy is too simple;
for Actual Idealism has seemed to some critics to be abstract to
the point of complete futility, precisely on account of its con-
tinual return to this original intuition.

Cf. Fernand—Lucien Mueller, La pensee contemporaine en

Italie, Geneve, Albert Kundig, 1941, p. 2~oT7
See below, Chapter II, Section 1; and Chapter IX, Section 1.
 6

It has been wisely remarked that Gentile demands of us an

"introversion" analogous to that which is required for the compre-
hension of Bergson.3 Actual Idealism is not closely related to
the philosophy of the elan vital; but they are alike in their
resolute rejection of the habits of thought which are customary
in the ordinary v/orld of everyday life, the habits which go by the
name of "common sense". The simplest approach to Gentile's
philosophy is provided by his criticism of the naive realism of
ordinary non-reflective, non-philosophical thought. For if we
can once understand why he feels that ordinary ways of thinking
are inadequate to express the full concreteness of experience
we shall be better able to guard ourselves against the tempta-
tion to fall back into a common sense attitude when we have to
deal with his speculative theory—which is quite unintelligible
from any point of view except his own.
Gentile himself has shown us how to make this transition in
the second and fourth chapters of The Reform of Education. In
this book he expounds his basic philosophical position in ordinary
language, without assuming on the part of his readers any acquain-
tance with the tradition of post-Kantian idealism which would
enable them to understand his own preferred vocabulary and the
way that he uses it. From here, then, we shall begin.
. . . We have to understand quite clearly what is meant
by concrete personality, and why the particular or empirical
personality, as we are usually accustomed to consider it,
is nothing more than an abstraction.
Ordinarily, relying on the most obvious data of exper-
ience, we are led to believe that the sphere of our moral

•^Mueller, op_. cit. , p. 221.

 personality coincides exactly with the sphere of our
physical person, and is therefore limited and contained
by the surface of our material body. . . . One body
then, one physical person, one moral personality—that
moral personality which each one of us recognizes and
affirms as his own self-consciousness, by saying: "I".
And in fact when I walk I am not a different person
from when I think. My ego remains the same whether
my body moves through space or whether my mind inwardly
meditates. Impenetrability, which is possessed by
matter, seems to be also a property of human individual-
ity. What I am, no one else can be; nor can I be confused
with.any other person. . . . My brother and my father are
dead. They have vanished from this world in which I
continue to exist; just as a stone remains unmoved when
the stone beside it is carried off . . . There are
hundreds of us here now, all gathered in this room:
but no essential ties bind us together; and soon each
of us will go his separate way without any sense of loss,
keeping intact his own individuality . . .
Each of us has his own being, his destiny, within
himself; every man makes himself the centre of a world
which he constructs with his own thoughts and actions.
A v/orld of ideas and images, dreams, concepts and systems,
all in his own head; a v/orld of values, of goods that
make life seem .beautiful and evils that make it hateful
and repulsive—all of them rooted in his own will, his
character and the particular v/ay in which he conceives
the world and gives it a personal colouring . . .
This conception which we habitually form of our own
personality, which is the basis of all our reflection
about our practical life and conduct in relations v/ith
other individuals, is, I repeat, an abstraction. For
when v/e thus conceive our own being we perceive only one
side of it and overlook our true selves, that aspect in
which all the' spirituality and humanity, that we attribute
to ourselves, is revealed . . . along v/ith the particular
aspect there is another element in our personality: an
element that is the very antithesis of all particularity,
in which we truly reach the depths of our nature, by
ceasing to be each a single self opposed to all the rest,
by becoming what all the others are—or at least what v/e
would have them be. 4

We should notice that, for his point of departure from the

world of common sense, Gentile chooses the ordinary everyday
theory of personality and consciousness. He does this because

4
B . 1128, pp. 17-19; cf. English translation (B. 659),
pp. 18-21.
 8

this is, literally, the only point, of contact that exists. His
philosophy is a theory of conscious experience. He is not con-
cerned v/ith the "external world" of common sense; the only sort
of world to which he attaches philosophical importance is the
world within consciousness; hence it is only the common sense
theory of the self, the internal world, that requires his philo-
sophical criticism.
He proceeds to demolish the monadic theory of personality
v/hich is the highest philosophical expression of common sense by
means of an example which is very frequent and familiar in all
his writings: he asks us to consider the nature of language and
linguistic communication.
That language is an essential constituent element
of our personality is obvious. By means of language
we talk to others, but primarily, v/e talk to ourselves.
This talking to ourselves means seeing our own ideas,
our own mind, our 'self, within ourselves: as the
philosophers say it means 'being self-conscious', and
hence being master of oneself, understanding what one
is doing and, above all, what is going on in one's
mind: being not a brute, whose life is lived for him
by his senses and instincts, but a man, a rational
animal . . . Aristotle who defined man as a 'rational
animal1, was already av/are that an alternative defin-
ition would be the 'animal that speaks' . . .
If I did not speak in the way in v/hich I have
learnt to speak I should not be myself. My way of ex-
pressing myself is an intrinsic trait of my personality
. . . But this language which makes me what I am, and
which intimately belongs to me, could I possibly possess
it and use it, making it almost flesh of my flesh, if,
mine as it is, it were enclosed within me in the v/ay in
which every fibre of my flesh has its place inside my
body, having nothing in common v/ith any other piece of
matter that coexists v/ith it in space? Could my
language really be mine, in short, if it were mine
alone and belonged to what we have called my particular
or empirical personality?
A simple reflection will suffice to prove to me that
my language is like a light within my own consciousness
that illumines every corner and renders visible to me
every movement and every sensation precisely because it
is not exclusively my own. It is the language by means
 9

of which I read and understand those ancient authors

whom I call "Italians" like myself . . .5
On the basis of this element of community or universality
involved in human consciousness Gentile erects his theory of
"culture" as the concrete inv/ard reality of human personality
rather than as the body of tradition which forms its material
presupposition. While doing so he takes the occasion to offer a
brief critique of common sense realism.
. . . Culture can be conceived in two ways: it is
of the utmost importance . . . that we should clearly
understand the profound difference between these two
conceptions which correspond to two opposed theories
of reality . . .
Let us begin from the more obvious of these theories,
the one that is original and fundamental for the human
mind. Our whole life, when we consider it as it
presents itself in experience, develops on the basis of
a natural v/orld, a world which does not depend on human
life but is the condition of it. In order to live, to
act, to produce or exert any sort of influence on the
world around us, v/e must first of all be born . . .
Men derive life from a nature, organic and inorganic,
which had to exist already before they could come into
being; and when the conditions of human life fail v/ithin
this nature, humanity will be extinguished, and nature
will remain, though transformed into something cold,
dark and dead . . .
. . . reality appears to us as already constituted
prior to our existence and therefore conditioning it;
it exists independently of us and is perfectly indifferent
to our being or non-being. But if reality is really
v/hat it appears to be and we are truly extraneous to
it, the conclusion can also be drawn that we presume to
know reality from the outside, and to move round it,
although v/e are not ourselves this reality and have no
part in it. In fact, the total complex of reality is
conceived, however vaguely, by us; and reality as a
whole is regarded as an object known to us, though
independent of our knowledge of it. The whole of reality
is exhaustively contained in this nature, which conditions
our spiritual life; and our spiritual life can be the
mirror of reality but can never itself be part of it.

5B. 1128, pp. 20-21; cf. English translation (B. 659),

pp. 22-23.
ibid., pp. 49-51; cf. English translation, pp. 64-67.
 10

Perhaps the most fundamental motive of Gentile's whole

philosophy lies in his intense conviction that any view of
reality which reduces consciousness to an irrelevant spectator
must be false. Any systematic theory of reality is impossible on
such a view, since the theory itself could never be part of the
system. But for Gentile it is not a matter of argument that
reality as a whole is rational. Without this ultimate postulate
no philosophical thought, in his sense of the word, would be
possible. Truth, as Hegel said, is the whole; if there is no
whole, there is no truth.
For this reason any theory in which the real world is
assumed as a complete and perfect whole, independent of the mind
that has knowledge of it is unsatisfactory. Y/e may refine on the
naive realism of primitive common sense by drav/ing a reflective
distinction between Nature and the idea of Nature: then, recog-
nizing that all our sense experience gains its meaning and truth
in the ideal v/orld we shall become, perhaps, Platonic idealists.
But reality though transformed is still independent.
And we, then, who open our eyes and look round us,
eager in the search for knowledge, anxious to get our
bearings and live in the midst of a world known and
familiar to us, considered as thinking beings and not
as natural objects, considered as v/hat we are when we
affirm our personality and say "Yife", are less than the
earthv/orms that creep about unnoticed by the foot that
crushes them. V/e are nothing, because we do not belong
to reality; and when we delude ourselves with the belief
that v/e are acting, and doing something on our own
account, we are actually doing no more than renounce
all empty desires to create something or do something-
original and personal; we are simply letting go of
ourselves and becoming confused with the eternal
reality, letting ourselves be submerged in the flow of
the irresistible current of its laws.'

B.1128, p. 53; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 70.

 The only way of escape from this ultimate nullity of
thought lies in resolutely rejecting the instinctive realistic
prejudice of mankind, and in seeing thought as the very soul of
reality. This recognition is
very simple in itself, and only appears difficult to
accept because the majority of people are absent-
minded, superficial thinkers, who lack the force of
mind that is required to face the tremendous respon-
sibility imposed on us by the truth that follows from

For, when we reflect that all the evidence for this independent
world is drawn from the consciousness that is said to be an
empty shadow beside it, the contradictory character of all
naturalism becomes apparent. How can the unreal guarantee the
real? This is the reductio ad absurdum of what Gentile calls
"realism" as opposed to "idealism"—though it would be more exact
to say "naturalism" as opposed to "spiritualism", since the
majority of earlier 'idealists' are 'realists' in his sense of
the v/ord.
We give the name realism to the method of thought
that makes the whole of reality an independent object,
abstracted from thought, to which thought as an activity
should conform. By idealism on the other hand, we mean
the higher point of view, from which we discover the
impossibility of conceiving a reality that is not the
reality of thought itself. For it reality is not an
idea which, as a simple object of the mind, may also
exist outside of the mind, indeed must exist indepen-
dently if the mind is to have the right or the power to
think of it. Reality is this very thought itself by
v/hich we think of everything, for this thought must
surely be something if by means of it, we want, some-
how, to affirm any reality whatsoever. It must be a
real activity, if, in actual thinking, it does not
become entangled in the magic circle of a dream, but
makes us live in its own real world. And if it is

B.1128, p . 55; cf. English translation (B.659),

pp. 72-73.
 inconceivable that it should ever issue forth from
itself, "to penetrate the assumed material world, then
that means that it has no need to issue from itself in
order to come into contact with reality; it means that
the reality which is called material and external to
thought is in some way illusory, and that the true
reality is just that which comes to be through the
efforts of actual thinking. For, indeed, there is no
way of thinking any reality, except by establishing
thought as the basis of it.
This is the conception, or if you like, the faith,
not merely of modern philosophy, but even of conscious-
ness in general, the consciousness that has gradually
been formed and moulded through the profound moral
sense of life fostered by Christianity. For it was
Christianity that first set against nature and the
flesh a truer reality—a world to which man is not
simply born but must raise himself, a world in which he
must live not because it is already there, but because
it is his task to create it of his own will—the king-
dom of the spirit.
According to this concept there is, properly speak-
ing, no reality; there is only the spirit which creates
reality, which is therefore self-made and not a natural
product. The realist speaks of something already
existent, a world into which man comes and must adapt
himself. The idealist knov/s only the v/orld that the
spirit creates; a nature is ever at work in'the progress
of the spirit and throbs in the soul of man, who v/ith
intellect and v/ill recreates it continually in a rest-
less activity that knows no pause; it is a world that
is never made, because the whole of the past issues
in the actuality of the present (the form that belongs
to it and in which it really exists) . . . °
These two opposed conceptions of reality, the one in v/hich
it is simply an object contemplated by the intellect, and the
other in which it is an activity generated by the will, are
alv/ays present in Gentile's mind. He gives them technical
names—the "abstract logos" and the "concrete logos"—and he
finds them opposed, under various disguises, everywhere in the
history of philosophy. But the reader who holds firmly to the
distinction betv/een "realism" and "idealism" here established,

9 B . 1 1 2 8 , pp. 55-57 (Gentile's italics); cf. English trans-

lation (B.659), pp. 73-75.
should be in no danger of getting lost in the intricacies of the
more academic works.

2. The "Problem of Christianity".

As can be seen from the quotation above, Gentile holds
that the spiritual as opposed to the material viev/ of reality is
rooted in the Christian tradition. The promulgation of the
Gospel brought into the world something new; against the static
contemplative attitude of the ancient v/orld it asserted the
primacy of the Will. True reality, in the new dispensation, is
the Will of God; and this requires human concurrence. The atti-
tude of the Christian religion is perfectly summed up in the
thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians:
"And though I have the gift of prophacy, and understand all
mysteries, and all knowledge . . . and have not Charity, I am
nothing."10
There is a sentence of St. Augustine, that Gentile con-
tinually quotes and echoes, which sums up for him the essence of
this great spiritual revolution: Noli foras ire; in te_ ipsum
redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas ("Go not abroad;
return into thyself; in the inward man abides Truth").ll To
express clearly this truth of the inner man has been, in his
view, the proper task of modern philosophy. But he holds that
no one prior to himself has fully succeeded in this task; in

10
Cf. B.1224, p. 34.
1]
-De v e r a r e l i g i o n e , XXXIX, p . 7 2 ; c f . B.70 i n B . 8 1 3 , p . 3 3 ;
B . 1 2 5 1 , pp.-T7~T.5; B . 1 1 0 0 , p . 57; B . 1 1 3 9 , p . 299; e t c .
 14

all earlier philosophies he detects signs of the old contempla-

tive realism or intellectualism. Christ proclaimed the truth in
religious terms; but the mystical transcendence v/hich is native
to religion has proved an insurmountable obstacle to exact
conceptual expression. For if God—the supreme fount of all
reality—is presupposed, how can the free spontaneity and
creativity of man be real? St. Augustine himself hammered out
the doctrine of Divine Grace v/hich resto'red man to a pre-
Christian condition of impotence: and philosophy slipped back
into the classical intellectualism proper to a contemplative
theory of transcendent reality.
All attempts to express the spirit of Christianity have
failed—they were, in fact, foredoomed to failure—because the
reality they sought to explicate was a presupposition, i.e. it
was a reality of the intellect, statically conceived as a kind of
'being', more or less on the model of the Being which was the
central notion of pre-Christian philosophy. In the Middle Ages
Christianity was conquered by the philosophy of the v/orld it had
conquered; and the Christian spirit only reasserted itself after
a long period of absorption. ^ The Humanists of the Renaissance
v/ith their plethora of works D£ dignitate hominis at last found
the right starting point. Bacon translated this dignitas into
potestas in his vision of a human conquest of nature through the
advance of the natural sciences. Then Descartes recognized that
the self-consciousness of the thinking subject is fundamental in

"II metodo dell'immanenza" in B.701, pp. 225-226.

 15

all knowledge; but his thinking subject is still a substance im-

mediately known, a presupposition like Bacon's sense experience.
The same weakness reappears in their successors. Spinoza,
the greatest of these, insisted strongly that the method of
philosophy must be immanent—i.e. that the thinking subject must
not be separated from the object of his thought—but he remained
entangled in transcendence, and therefore ended by resolving the
subject into the object, man into God, rather than vice versa.
Thus he worked out the intellectual theory of reality to its
logical conclusion. 3
The English empiricists, on the other hand, through their
concentration on immediate experience resolved the object into
the subject leaving only a flux of subjective impressions. Thus,
in Gentile's words, philosophy was
constrained to oscillate between a v/orld which is
intelligible but not real (the rational world of the
metaphysicians from Descartes to Wolff) and a world
which is real indeed, and substantial, but not intel-
ligible, though obscurely felt and able to shine
through sense impressions, unconnected and manifold
(.the "nature"
1
of the empiricists from Bacon and Hobbes
to Hume). 4

1
3«in metodo dell' immanenza" in B.701, pp. 230ff.
Spinoza's doctrine that truth is not to be fixed by reference to
some reality that transcends it, passes into Actual Idealism
without substantial amendment, and Gentile acknowledges this by
frequent reference to the Spinozan dictum Verum norma sui et
falsi. The whole of Actual Idealism is, as it v/ere, a transla-
tion "into the first person of what Spinoza says in the third.
Thus Gentile approaches the Spinozan synthesis more closely than
any other Hegelian, precisely because he opposes it more
directly: he does not criticize or correct, he simply 'con-
verts'. That is why, although he hardly ever mentions the old
Jewish lens-grinder without seeking to confute him, the spirit
of the Ethics broods over and pervades much of Gentile's own
work.
1
4±j.l279, p. 72; cf. English translation (B.660), p. 73.
 In Gentile's view, the scepticism of Hume provides a
sufficient critique of both rationalism and empiricism; and in
revealing the contradictions involved in any claim to possess
knowledge of an object which transcends consciousness, he brought
the 'modern problem' clearly into focus. The solving of this
problem begins in earnest with Kant's awakening from the 'slumber
of dogmatism'.15

3. Kant and the synthesis a priori.

The genesis of Actual Idealism properly began with the
Critique of Pure Reason.1" Gentile claims that the germs of his
philosophy were already discernible in his doctoral thesis,
written in 1897 at the age of 22, on Rosmini and Gioberti:
. . . in explaining the value of Kosmini's philosophy
and hence of Kant's, my thesis brings out the profound
difference between the category (.which is the act of
thought ("1' atto del pensierol ), and the concept {which
. is the fact thought about [il pensato"| ) .17
The Kantian synthesis a priori, by which Hume's scepticism
is overcome, is a constructive activity on the part of the

l^But several important steps towards a solution had al-

ready been taken by Vico. The idealist interpretation of Vico,
taken as a whole, is certainly debatable. But when Gentile
writes "superare ogni immediatezza, hoc opus, hie labor" (B.1075,
p. 97) he can legitimately point to Vico's criticism of Descartes
as the first emergence of this ideal. At the beginning of the
Theory of Mind as Pure Act he takes the famous aphorism Verum
et factum convertuntur and revises it to make a motto for his
own theory. One may object that when Vico wrote the De anti-
quissima Italorum sapientia his mind was still dominated by the
neo-Platonism of the late Renaissance; but, for all that,
Gentile's implied tribute remains a just one, since the Scienza
Nuoya is only comprehensible if the 'making' of truth is a
real creative activity, not an ideal recreative contemplation.
In this respect Vico does anticipate the great movement of
German philosophy from Kant to Hegel.
16
Cf. B.1013 in B.1075, p. 20; B.296 in B.898, p. 24.
17
B.296 in B.898, p. 12.
 17

subject. It is not a synthesis of concepts but of a concept and

a sensation: and it is a priori because neither term can be
concretely considered apart from it. The concept involved is a
pure form, and is not a product of sense experience, but rather a
condition of it. Kant enumerates a finite set of twelve of
these pure forms, v/hich he calls functions of the understanding—
or categories. On the other hand, the sensation which is united
with the category in the synthesis is not a pure sensation: it
is perceived through an intuition which has two fundamental
forms, space and time. The source of the synthesis, the common
root both of the sensuous intuition and of the activity of the
understanding, lies in the "transcendental unity of apper-
ception"—the Ego.18
Kant's conciliation of the dualism between mind and
matter fails, however, because the content of the sensible mani-
fold remains obstinately foreign to the elaborative activity of
the mind. The Kantian category ought to be the actuality of the
synthesis (1'atto del pensiero) but it remains a mere abstract
term of the synthesis, a concept, (il pensato). Kant could not
hold firm to the identification of synthesis and category
because he accepted the sensible manifold as a datum, and did not
clearly recognize that its constitution as a manifold involved
the elaborative activity of the understanding. Having accepted
the manifold as manifold, he needed a systematic multiplicity of
judgements through v/hich it could be ordered. Thus the category

-^This. summary is based on Gentile's discussion in B.1251,

pp. 74-76.
 IS

lost its truly transcendental character, its essential unity,

(which he was the first to perceive), and was degraded into a
'concept'. This led to a series of mistaken attempts to restore
unity by means of a 'transcendental deduction' of the Categories.
As the transcendental ground of the multiplicity which he
accepted as given, Kant postulated the noumenal world. In this
guise the old realism., driven out at the door, crept back by the
window. In relation to the noumenon the synthesis a priori of
the understanding is conditioned, and not free; and therefore
human freedom, the autonomous nature of which Kant clearly
understood, had to be relegated to the noumenal world, and has no
place in the First Critique.
It seems to me impossible to over-emphasize the importance
of this interpretation of the Category as "the act of thought"
in any attempt to understand Gentile. The distinctive motivation
of his "reform of the Hegelian dialectic" is Kantian, and one
might almost say that the moving spirit of his whole philosophy
is Kantian rather than Hegelian. Gentile's aim is to confine
philosophy within the bounds of actual experience; Kant had tried
to do this in the Critique of Pure Reason, but he was hampered by
his dogmatic inheritance, which gave a somewhat sceptical tone to
his final achievement. Gentile seeks to rid the Critical

Philosophy of this element of scepticism, by conquering these

remnants of dogmatism. In this his attitude towards Kant differs
from that of the lierman idealists, all of whom in some way or
other disregarded the limitations, laid by the master upon the
exercise of speculative reason. Fichte, Schelling, Hegel,
Schopenhauer all come to rest in an Absolute which transcends
 19

concrete experience: and for all of them the Critical Philosophy

is only a prolegomena or propaedeutic to a 'Speculative'
philosophy of transcendence of the kind which Gentile and Kant
are united in opposing.1°
It has sometimes been made a complaint against Gentile
that he misrepresents the historical Kant. ° When one considers
his writings as a whole, I doubt whether the accusation can be
made good: but, be that as it may, the complaint rests on a
false premiss. Gentile assumes an adequate knowledge of the
whole history of German idealism on the part of his readers. The
brief essays on the history of philosophy which serve as a sort
of introduction to several of his systematic works, along with
the chance remarks which are to be found on almost every page of
his writings, are not meant to instruct his readers, but to
illumine and interpret what they are assumed to know already.

-^Some reservations are necessary in the case of Fichte

who is very close to Kant in spirit: in fact Fichte's attitude
towards the Absolute shows up clearly the difficulties and
contradictions implicit in Kant's attitude towards the noumenal
world.
Even the agreement of Kant and Gentile in this matter is
somewhat deceptive. From Gentile's point of view, it cannot
really be said that Kant was definitely opposed to metaphysics.
His own theory of the Noumenon constituted a metaphysics of the
old-fashioned dogmatic variety. Sometimes, as Gentile puts it,
he faces Hume's problem of how the mind passes to a knowledge of
external reality—which is properly soluble only as Hume solved
it—and resolves it by positing a Ding an sich which remains
completely unknowable: and sometimes he faces his own true
problem—of the process of consciousness from sensation to
self-conscious reason. The former line of development leads to
the replacement of metaphysics by science; the latter to the new
immanent 'metaphysics of the mind'. (Cf. "Tl metodo dell'imman-
enza" in B.701, pp. 237-239).
20
Cf. Emilio Chiocchetti, La filosofia di Giovanni
Gentile, Milano, "Vita e Pensiero", 1922, p. by.
This assumption, as Collingwood remarked,21 is a serious obstacle
to the understanding of his philosophy on the part of the
ordinary layman. It seems to be required, however, since his
whole outlook is essentially historical; and there is little
that anyone can do to remove the resulting barrier.
Several critics have remarked with regret the absence in
Gentile's writings of a critical evaluation of Fichte:^3 g^
at first sight the lack does seem perplexing. For Gentile does
recognize in several places2** that Fichte's ideal of philosophy
as Wissenschaftslehre is, from his point of view, the right one.
Fichte was seeking to do what Gentile claims to have done:
establish a philosophy without presuppositions—a 'philosophy of
freedom'—by eliminating the dogmatic elements in the Kantian
synthesis. Furthermore, as Gentile recognizes,2^ it was Fichte
who originated the correct method for the attainment of this
ideal—the dialectic without which it would be impossible to
regard experience as self-creative and moral freedom as the

91
^Symposium: "Can the new idealism dispense with mys-
ticism?", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary
Volume III (1923), p. 169.
22
This is the only excuse that 1 can offer for the
unavoidably esoteric character of this present discussion.
2
^cf. Roger W. Holmes, The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile,
New lork, Macmillan, 1937, p. 4; Patrick Romanell (Pasquale
Romanelli), The Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile, New York,
S. F. Vanni, 1938, p. 59; Mueller, op. cit., p. 244, £n. 4.
^Notably in B.1279, p. 244; cf. English translation
(£.660), p. 254.
25
B.1013 in B.1075, p. 28. (It is true that sometimes he
gives an unfairly large share of the credit to Hegel—cf. B.1224,
P. 25).
 21

ground of reality. But in general he deals with Fichte only

briefly and in passing, as a stage on the road from Kant to
Hegel; and though I agree with Mueller that it is a pity, I
think we can see why he does not treat him at length.
Fichte like all of the other post-Kantians erred, from the
point of view of Actual Idealism, in that he attacked the various
dualities left in the Critical Philosophy in the wrong order.
The fundamental problem which Kant bequeathed was that of
integrating the Pure v/ith the Practical Reason. But that could
never be done while the traditional dualism of thought and action
was preserved. It was not sufficient to banish the Ding an sich
and fill the gap by reversing the order of the first two
Critiques. This still leaves the heart of reality outside of
actual thinking: one noumenon has been replaced by another, but
the result is not very different. True the Fichtean Ego is no
longer a substantial entity2 but it is a reality which tran-
scends the thought that gradually recognizes it: the 'necessity'
of truth arises from the logical priority of this transcendent
act of self-creation. As long as thought follows reality—in
any sense of the word—truth is not and cannot be norma sui;
it will always be counterfeit—child of a contemplation whose
content remains alien and indifferent. The late comer to the

26j cannot agree v/ith Prof. Holmes when he argues that the
Fichtean Ego is distinguished from the Gentilian by virtue of a
certain substantial existence. (Holmes, op. cit., p. 5).
Fichte's Ego is as much a self-creative dialectic as Gentile's,
and he-himself protests strongly against a 'substantial' inter-
pretation: the Ich is an Act, a Thathandlung whose being
coincides with its activity of self-positing. The difference
lies rather in the relation of this original dialectical activity
to the thought which is aware of it.
feast will always be without a wedding garment. 'Alien and
indifferent' may seem unduly strong expressions to apply to a
reality as intimate as the self-positing of Fichte's Ego. But
any transcendent reality is alien to a philosophy of freedom.
The resemblance which several writers have remarked between
Actual Idealism and the activism of Fichte is largely specious.
Both philosophers assert, if you will, the 'priority of the will
over the intellect'—but whereas for Fichte the implied dualism,
is never successfully resolved, Gentile makes the assertion
only after resolving it. i^or him the theoretical moment,
grasped in its concreteness, impractical—indeed, it is the
very soul of all practical activity. So that for him the
'priority of the will' means simply the universal priority of
the act of thought (pensiero pensante).
If the dialectic which constitutes the Ego transcends the
thought which thinks it, why pre judge the issue by calling it
Ego? This seems to have been the substance of Schilling's
complaint against Fichte, and the motive of his search for a
'point of union' between subject and object. Not merely the
growth of the Ego in self-consciousness, but growth or life of
any kind, can be shown to be constituted by a dialectical
activity. Thus Schelling bequeathed the objective moment to the
Hegelian synthesis, and Gentile passes over him as he does over
Fichte, because the problems implicit in the method of both
become fully explicit in Hegel.

4. The Hegelian Synthesis.

According to Gentile Hegel was the first to see clearly
that the problem of the relation between being and knowing was
essentially logical. ' He recognized that the dialectic was,
properly speaking, a new logic of activity opposed to the
traditional static logic of Aristotle: and therefore he drew a
careful distinction between the 'intellect' which conceives
'things' and the 'reason* which conceives 'spirit'. But in his
attempt to solve the problem which he had thus clearly formu-
lated, he succeeded only in making explicit the intellectualism
which had remained concealed in the theories of his predecessors.
Briefly, his method is at variance with his results. If
we take his philosophy as a complete system of reality the
'progress* implied in the dialectic development of the Idea is
illusory: his new Logic is as static as the old because his
'solution' of the pseudo-problem of the categories is to make
his Logic run in a great circle whose end is its beginning. And
when we have completed this circle a further paradox comes
clearly into view. Having followed the abstract universal to its
point of fullest development we are unable to understand the
leap by which we are to pass from the ideal universality of logic
?8
to the existent particularity of nature. Precisely where the
dialectic becomes fully concrete it defeats our comprehension:
and on re-examination we find—what we might well have begun to
suspect when we found that the dialectic of the Idea constituted
a closed system—that the abstract dialectic of the Logic lacks
the element of living contradiction which alone would make it
27
Cf. B.1224, p. 45.
28
B.1279, p. 66; cf. English translation (B.660),
pp. 65-66.
cogent. Its apparent cogency is a mere seemingt for example,,
Being, in so far as it is pure Being, is distinct from non-Being;
while, on the other hand, in so far as, by reason of its absolute
indeterminacy, it is not distinguishable from non-Being, it is
identical with non-Being. Inasmuch as it is self-identical it
is distinct from non-Being; but inasmuch as this identity is.
undetermined it is identical with non-Being. There is either a
static distinction (self-identity), or a static identity (equi-
valence). But there is no way in which from the two abstract
concepts a third can be generated, for there is no unity of
opposites, but only the unity of identity.2°
In fact, there can be no dialectic of 'ideas' or objects
of thought that is not ultimately reducible to the naturalism of
the Platonic dialectic. No philosophy of freedom is possible
upon such foundations. Hegel's method contradicts his results
because it simply is not applicable to his premisses; we have to
choose between the method and the system. Actual Idealism is
the logical result of a strict adherence to the method: it
rests on a "reform of the Hegelian dialectic".

5. Bertrando Spaventa.
This reform was not the achievement of Gentile alone.
The problem of how, if Heality is dialectical, Hegel's or any
other systematic theory of it could be final or complete,
emerged fairly early. The man who formulated the problem in the
way in which Gentile received it was Bertrando Spaventa, a

^B.1279, pp. 55-56; cf. English translation (B.660),

pp. 54-55.
Neapolitan professor of the Risorgimento period.^0
Spaventa was perturbed about the duality that existed in
Hegel's theory'between philosophy and phenomenology. The
Phenomenology which describes the mind's progress towards a
recognition of its own absolute character, is only a sort of
introduction to the systematic philosophy of the Spirit set
forth in the Encyclopaedia. This means that an explanation of
knowledge is not at the same time an explanation of the object
known. Being still transcends the conscious mind. But to prove
the identity of mind and being is the essential task of a philo-
sophy of pure immanence. Somehow the process of the Absolute
Mind must be seen as the process of the individual mind, so that
the propaedeutic character of the Phenomenology may be abolished;
for after all it is the individual mind that recognizes its own
absoluteness in the Phenomenology.
Spaventa did not succeed in finding a way of reconcil-
iation. He did not adopt a sufficiently radical standpoint in
relation to the Hegelian philosophy as a whole. For as Gentile
says:
the root of all the difficulties, some of v/hich he
probed so deeply . . . consists precisely in the
distinction of the two proofs, and in the separation
of phenomenology from logic.31

-^We should perhaps say, rather, that Gentile has found

intimations and anticipations of his own formulation of the
problem in the, often fragmentary, essays of Spaventa which he
edited and published for the first time. Spaventa was certainly
moving tov/ards a philosophy of pure immanence, but it is
doubtful how far he actually saw, or would have been prepared to
go, along the path that Gentile has followed.
31
B.692, p. 156.
 But in one of his essays he chanced upon the key to the
problem. The way to unite the two 'proofs' (as he called them)
of the ideal character of reality was to recognize the individual
mind of the Phenomeno1ogy as the essential motive force of the
Logic. Through the introduction of this active power, the
problem of the generation of the new concept 'Becoming' from the
opposition of Being and non-Being in Hegel's Logic can be solved.
Spaventa realized that the Being that passes over into its own
opposite is the thinking activity. An empty, dead concept is not
enough; a living reality is needed. We have to turn from the
content of thought to the act of thinking in order to find a
basis for the dialectic.
In defining 'Being't I do not distinguish myself
as thought from Being;-I extinguish myself as thought
in Being; 1 am Being.
Now, this self-extinction [estinguersi] of thought
in Being, is the contradiction of Being. And this
contradiction is the first spark of the dialectic.
Being contradicts itself b'ecause this self-extinction
of Thought in Being—and only thus is Being possible—
is a negation of extinction [un non estinguersil: it
is a self-distinction [distinguersi]~, it is life. To
think of not thinking, to make an abstraction from
thinking, that is to say, to define Being, is to
think . . .
This immanent contradiction, that is, the unity in
difference of Being and Non-Being, is what has been
called the unrest of Being . . .
.Becoming is the unrest of Being: the Being which,
inasmuch as it is, is not. Becoming is the Being which
is Non-Being, the Being which is Thinking, the Objective
Thought fil Pensato"! which is Thinking [pensare"] (the
Abstraction which is Abstracting). 1 think Being; and
inasmuch as I think Being, I am Thinking, I am Non-
Being; inasmuch as 1 abstract from myself as abstracting,
1 am abstracting. But Thinking itself, l do not think,
at least 1 do not think it as Thinking, but only as
objective thought in a new act of thinking [lc_ penso
solo di nuovo come pensatol. I cannot grasp myself as
Thinking, as won-Bemg; 1 grasp myself as Being: as
Thinking 1 am the Being which is Non-Being. This
sentence: I am Thinking, and 1 cannot grasp myself as
 27

Thinking—this unrest, this Being which is unrest

itself—this is Becoming. (I cannot grasp the act as
act—as energy, or I would like to say, agens; the act
when grasped is no longer act: it is Actum).
Being and Non-Being when they are validated
finverati"! in Becoming, are no longer what they were
before being validated; they are each of them that
same unity in difference which is Becoming, and in
virtue of being this unity, they are truly, in other
words actually, distinct. Precisely in virtue of their
being truly one and distinct we say they are validated;
that is they are moments of Becoming.
Being as a moment, is the Being that becomes:
beginning, being born (self-distinction); Non-Being,
as a moment, is the Non-Being that becomes: ceasing,
dying (self-extinction).
Thus Becoming itself is a beginning that ceases,
and a ceasing that begins; a birth that dies, and a
death that is born (self-distinction that extinguishes
itself, and self-extinction that distinguishes itself).
Eternal death, eternal birth.
This eternal death that is eternal birth, this
eternal birth that is eternal death, is Thinking.- I
think, that is I am born as thinking; but I cannot
grasp myself as thinking, but only as objective
thought, and hence 1 die as thinking. let in "dying
as thinking, I think; and hence 1 am born as thinking.
And so on forever.32
This passage is quite a startling anticipation of the
fundamental thesis of Actual Idealism. It follows from
Spaventa's discovery that the whole 'problem of the categories',
about which post-Kantian philosophy v/as so exercised, is an
illusion. For at every stage in the concomitant progress of
Thought and Being the situation is the same: the unique category,
the source of the dialectic movement, is the concrete thinking
activity of the Subject. In reality there is only one level—
this actual thought. This conclusion, however, undermines the
whole s t r u c t u r e of Hegel's system; and Spaventa c e r t a i n l y did
not envisage such a revolutionary denouement.

3 2 "i,e prime categorie d e l l a Logica di Hegel" in B.49,

pp. 197-200 (Spaventa's i t a l i c s , c a p i t a l s and punctuation).
 28

6. The Method of Pure Immanence.33

It was left to Gentile to develop the consequences of this
new interpretation of the dialectic some twenty-five years after
Spaventa's death. Actual Idealism is the result of a logical
development of this single fundamental principle: that the
only reality which is truly dialectical is the activity of
thinking. "As Descartes saw, thought is in so far as it is
active; (if it were something that i_s it would not be what it
is—act). It is in not being, in self-positing, in becoming,
that it is. "34 'j^e free spontaneity of thought must be both the
foundation and the keystone of the modern spiritual view of the
world. Only in this way can the Fichtean ideal of a Wissen-
schaftslehre be realized: a philosophy of freedom that makes no
assumptions, and develops the Cartesian cogito to the full
without appealing to any transcendent reality. Fichte and even
Hegel fell short of this ideal because they continued to pre-
suppose reality to the activity which comprehends it. Even a
reality created by the spirit, is not a spiritual reality if the
creation is already finished and complete—for there is then no
room for free activity. Only if thinking is seen as the eternal
creative act is the problem of freedom solved. In a truly
spiritual account of reality there can be nothing external to
this activity—everything must fall within it.

j-jfp0 provide adequate documentation for this section

would be next to impossible. 1 have here attempted to go behind
the doctrines to the fundamental motives of Gentile's philosophy.
In a way the rest of the thesis provides the best documentation
that I can offer.
34B.1279, p. 56; cf. English translation (B.660), p. 56.
 In this account of reality, therefore, 'method' and
'result', logic and metaphysics, phenomenology and philosophy,
must coincide. The 'method' of philosophy cannot be an
'instrument' that produces an independent result. It is not a
ladder to Philosophy as Hegel's Phenomenology is a ladder to the
Absolute; it i_s Philosophy. If the method of philosophy is only
a means to the resulting 'system' then the system is something
transcendent relative to a thought that is still in search of
it: and if Truth is thus foreign to thought, then the actual
finding of truth has no value. Thinking as metodo strumento is
compelled to deny itself. But since even this denial would be
an affirmation if the seeker after a transcendent truth were
logical enough to affirm it, it is obvious that even the theories
of a transcendent reality are dependent on the living synthesis
of actual thinking.
Kant remarked somewhere that there is no 'philosophy',
but only philosophizing. This is the essence of Gentile's
"method of pure immanence". Here the Kantian 'category', the
synthesis a priori, and the transcendental unity of apperception
have coalesced, and the noumenon is finally banished. There
have been philosophies of immanence before, from the time of
Aristotle onwards. But Actual Idealism is far more radical than
any previous attempt in this direction. From Gentile's point of
view, all previous philosophies are philosophies of transcend-
ence—the Aristotelian 'individual' for example, in which the
'universal' is immanent is still a transcendent reality. it is
posited as independent of pensiero pensante, and as such it is a
mere abstraction which must be brought back to the living thought
which actually contains it and gives it meaning. It is this
thought that is truly individual, a synthesis a priori of which
we cannot say unequivocally either that it is particular (since
it is a universal and infinite reality), or that it is universal
(since its universality is a self-limiting actuality). We cannot
define it at all, because we cannot objectify it. It is always
precisely the consciousness that contains the object, the act
of defining.35
The most important consequence of this assertion that
thought is an act v/hich eternally determines itself, and is not
determined by anything external to itself, is that the familiar
distinction between thinking and doing is thereby abolished.
Thinking has become an activity; indeed, it-is now the unique
activity of which all others are simply facets. Traditionally
it has been held that, while action is free, thought (or at
least true thought) is determined by the truth that it knows,
the reality that is its object—a reality which exists independ-
ently whether it is known or not. It may seem that Gentile's
denial of this distinction, and, in particular, his doctrine that
thought is not directed towards an independent reality, simply
opens the gate to relativism and absolute scepticism. This,
however, is far from his intention. If one wished to express
the significance of his 'philosophy of freedom' briefly it would
be fairer to say that he denies the subjectivity which naive
common sense ascribes to action than that he denies the

B.1279, p. 8; cf. English translation (B.660), pp. 6-7.

 31

objectivity ascribed to serious thought.

Freedom, for Gentile, means freedom in the Kantian sense—
the moral autonomy of the good will. Thought must indeed be
true: but, in his view, this objectivity is something that
belongs to its own inward nature; just as duty belongs to the
inward nature of the will. Truth is the duty of thought: it is
a moral value. When he says that thought and action are both
'free' he does not mean that either is the result of a sponta-
neous impulse; an impulsive action is the very antithesis of
freedom as he understands it. For no action can be truly ours
if it is not mediated by our own conscious thought; hence the
free will of man cannot be established by asserting the primacy
of the practical moment (the will), as Fichte and Croce do. An
act of which v/e know nothing until it is complete, is none of
our doing. It is as foreign to us as any completely determined,
natural order which presents itself as 'given', whether by an
unknown agent or by no agent at all. The spirit can know only
what it has made knov/ingly. Free action must be intelligent,
it must be guided by thought. Yet how can thought guide the
active creation of a new world, if the world in which it has its
own purely contemplative being is absolutely determined prior to
its advent. This is the rock upon which all previous attempts
to express the new We11anschauung of Christianity have been
wrecked. We have to grasp the concept of thought as active and
creative, not passive and contemplative, if we are to understand
the possibility of any freedom whatever.
But if my thinking constitutes my reality, am not I
imprisoned in a world of illusions? In other words, is this
 32

doctrine distinguishable from solipsism? And if an absolute

subjectivism of this sort is the price of an understanding of
freedom, would it not be better to renounce such an understanding,
and return to the Kantian world, in which all actual thought is
determined by conditions that transcend it, and freedom is a
mystery, postulated as necessary for the explanation of moral
experience? In order to understand clearly how Gentile's
philosophy evades, or claims to evade, this conclusion we must
reconsider the 'objectivity' that belongs to the 'act' of thought.
Thinking is not mere idle imagining. It is not, indeed, deter-
mined by a reality which is external and indifferent to it; but
it determines itself, and this determination is not a game but
a serious business. Whoever thinks, thinks the truth. That is
to say he thinks as well as he can and affirms his thought as
'true'—that is precisely as 'the best that I can do'. The
'truth' that he thinks is never final—further investigation is
always necessary; and in affirming it as 'true' he objectifies
it, cuts it off from himself, and makes it the starting point for
criticism and reformulation.
This objectification also means that whoever thinks does
not think simply for himself: in accepting his own thought he
assumes that, if he can only make himself properly understood,
others will agree v/ith him. It is this universality, or rather
this striving for and claim to universality, which constitutes
reality. This is Gentile's "Transcendental Ego" in whom God and
man are one. "Seek and ye shall find" says the Gospel; according
to Actual Idealism, this is a way of saying that the finding lies
in the moral earnestness of the seeking. A man will always find
precisely what he deserves, and out of his finding he will build
the actual world that he deserves. Thought is free precisely in
the Kantian sense—its freedom is the willing acceptance of a
universal law which it gives to itself. "Seek and ye shall find"
is thus a direct translation of the proverbial maxim: Praemium
virtutis ipsamet virtus—Virtue is its own reward.3°
In Actual Idealism, therefore, 'Truth' and 'Reality'
coincide v/ith 'Value'. But what about 'truth of fact'? 'My pen
is black' is true because my pen is_ in fact 'black'. If there
is no place for truths of this sort in the new theory of 'truth',
then Gentile's Idealism is a very narrow doctrine and one of
doubtful utility.
We shall have to consider presently the question of the
'narrowness' of this theory of 'pure' actuality; but at least it
is not narrow in this sense. 'Facts' according to Gentile belong
to the past of the act of thought. That is, they form the
content of the eternal present. For properly speaking, the act
has no past, since it is not in time, but generates time as a
mode of order for this content. All thought requires such a
factual content into which it breathes life and value; the logo
astratto, which is subject to the traditional abstract logic of
identity and contradiction, is an essential moment in the logo
concreto which is the dialectical logic of actual thought. It
is true that although Gentile can demonstrate the necessity of
the logo astratto in general he cannot demonstrate the necessity

36B.1288, p. 6; cf. B.1100, p. 91 (where the dictum is

ascribed to Pomponazzi).
 34

of any particular logo astratto. This has sometimes been urged

in criticism of his theory.37 But he never meant to do this; I
am sure that his theory does not require it, and I strongly
suspect that it involves a denial that it is possible—he is in
no way bound to 'deduce his critic's pen'. Experience for him
is an a priori synthesis of subject and object. That is to say
that however far back we go in an attempt to trace an experience
to some unique 'source' we shall always find the duality. There
is no Fichtean absolute 'seeing' v/hich is not a seeing of any-
thing, any more than there is an absolute Nature against which
experience in its objective aspect could be measured. The 'fact-
uality' of an experience is the limit of our actual comprehension.
This limit is always there: v/e never 'get to the bottom' of
Nature. It is in this sense that Actual Idealism affirms
transcendence. The transcendent is perceived in and through the
process of its immanent becoming; it has value, i.e. reality, in
and for experience. "In the act of thinking nature and history
T O
are resolved," but this
does not mean that there is properly speaking, a single
massive absorption of the whole of reality, it means
that the eternal resolution of reality is displayed in
and through all the forms which experience indicates
in the world. Experience is from the metaphysical
point of view, the infinite begetter of an infinite
offspring, in which it is realized. There is neither
nature nor history, but always and only this nature,
this history, in this spiritual act.^y

37 cf. Holmes, op_. cit. , p. 194-195; Romanell, op. cit.,

p. 174.
38B.1279, p. 263, cf. English translation (B.660), p. 274.
loc. cit., cf. English translation, p. 275.
 35

The expression 'experience begets reality' is perhaps

more fortunate than the one, 'thought creates reality': but we
must not let ourselves think of experience as a power; it is
just this begetting. The form is all; there is nothing behind
or beyond. iiiven as the unresolved opaque element in thought,
'matter' coincides with form. It is a negative form, a problem;
it is ignorance, the present limit of our knowledge, a limit
which is only real to us v/hen it is somehow determined as
'ignorance about something'. "So that ignorance is a fact to
which experience can appeal only because it is known."^u

7. Gentile and Croce.

To anyone who has studied the early works of Croce the
suggestion that the author of this "absolute formalism" was ever
a disciple of his is almost ludicrous. The whole of Croce's
great system rests on the dichotomy between theory and practice.
Certainly he has felt the need to unify these two great
aspects of the spirit; but it is the dichotomy not the unity
which is his key to almost all of the problems of philosophy,
while for Gentile it is precisely the dichotomy which is the
source of the problems. For a long period the two philosophers
collaborated in a common struggle against the empiricism and
positivism which were dominant at the time v/hen they began to
write. They v/ere both interested in the tradition of German
idealism and in the general history of Italian culture. But
Croce was an older man and his systematic philosophy was already

4°B.1279, p. 32; cf. English translation (B.660), p. 275.

 36

before the public when Gentile's thought was approaching matur-

ity. These facts combined to produce a natural but mistaken
impression that Actual Idealism was much more directly related
to the 'philosophy of the Spirit' than it really was.41
Nor can any serious student of Gentile accept the thesis
that has sometimes been put forward, that Gentile developed his
doctrine largely out of a desire to separate himself from
Croce, and that the break which occurred after the March on Rome
was always inevitable. I cannot pretend to solve the psycho-
logical problem of whether Gentile aspired to be a new maestro
di color che sarmo or not.42 it may be. But in any case his
philosophy v/as an independent grov/th rooted in problems and pre-
occupations quite different from those of Croce—and these
problems occupied his mind even before he came into contact with
Croce. It was precisely this independence of their views that
made the break between them, when it came, one of the saddest
misfortunes in the history of modern philosophy,43
On the evidence of the early correspondence between the
tv/o philosophers, Prof. Ugo Spirito has suggested that it was
Gentile v/ho v/as the dominant partner in the early years of their
association. This seems a rather extreme view and it is
apparent that Spirito means it to be understood in a fairly
limited sense. He is not concerned to deny the substantial

41cf. B.1013 in B.1075, pp. 20-21; B.296 in B.898,

pp. 11-15.
42of. Mueller, ojo_. cit. , p. 214.
43see also the Additional IMote to Chapter VI (pp. 302-304).
 37

originality of Croce, but rather to emphasize the equal origin-

ality, of Gentile as emphatically as possible. At the least, he
has clearly established that no reliable judgement about the
early development of either thinker will be possible unless
and until their early correspondence has been published in
full,44 xt would appear, hov/ever, that the question of the
'dominant partner' is comparatively unimportant, since each
partner always had a personal outlook that was his own, no
matter how much they learned from one another. Croce sums up
his youthful attitude thus:
I soon settled down into a kind of unconscious
immanentism, caring for no other world than that in
which I actually lived, and not conscious in any
direct or primary way of the problem of transcendence.
Hence I found no difficulty in conceiving the relation
between thought and being . . .45
From Gentile's point of view this is a kind of blasphemy that is
only excusable on grounds of 'invincible ignorance'. For it was

44Qiornaie critico della filosofia italiana, 1950,

(Third series, volume IV), pp. 1-11. IT is interesting to note
that Cecil Sprigge inclines towards a similar view in his recent
brief study of Croce (Benedetto uroce, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1952, p. 16). Some evidence can be found for it in the
published writings of Croce himself. He speaks of his early
association with Gentile several times in the Contributo alia
critica di me stesso, (1915, reprinted in Etica e political
Bari, La^erza, 1945, pp. 361-411; English translation by K. G.
Collingwood under the title An Autobiography, Oxford University
Press, 1927, cf. pp. 61, 67, "1T3, 105) i Here he acknov/ledges
that he first came to appreciate Hegel and Spaventa at the
instance of Gentile; and that Gentile's doctrine of the unity of
philosophy with the history of philosophy was the source of his
own view that philosophy coincides with history.
It is legitimate, therefore, to see Gentile's influence
behind some of the major theses of Uroce's Logic. But it is also
reasonable to conclude that the Aesthetics was conceived
independently of the main Hegelian tradition in Italy.
45An Autobiography, pp. 88-89.
this problem of 'the relation between thought and being' that
tormented him all his life.
Perhaps the best summary of the relationship that existed
between the two of them was that given by Croce in the intro-
duction which he wrote for the English translation of Gentile's
book The Reform of Education:
. . . our general conception of philosophy as the
philosophy of the Spirit—of the subject, and never of
nature, or of the object—has developed a peculiar
stress in Gentile, for whom philosophy is above all
that point in which every abstraction is overcome and
submerged in the concreteness of the act of Thought;
whereas for me philosophy is essentially methodology
of the one real and concrete Thinking—of historical
Thinking. So that while he strongly emphasizes unity,
I no less energetically insist on the distinction and
dialectics of the forms of the spirit as a necessary L(.
formation of the methodology of historical judgement.4°
This brief comment brings out the complementary nature of their
philosophical speculation. The mutual independence in principle,
upon which v/e have insisted, is counterbalanced by a remarkable
degree of mutual dependence in detailed development. Each of
them worked v/ith one eye on v/hat the other was doing, continually
borrowing, criticizing, and reformulating. Sometimes the result
was a logomachy: but in general the critical attitude adopted
on both sides was fruitful for both; and a serious student of
any theory advanced by either must always take account of the
position adopted by the other on the same issue.
It is doubly important to remember this mutual preoc-
cupation in dealing v/ith the writings of the later years, in

46
B.659, p. x.
which it is not always explicitly acknowledged. After the
advent of Fascism twenty-five years of concordia discors and
active cooperation gave way to twenty years of bitter hostility
and violent polemic (a polemic v/hich Croce did not entirely
abandon even after Gentile's death by assassination). .The desire
on both sides in this period was to accentuate differences:
but the effective result was that the real differences were
obscured in a sea of artificial verbal distinctions whenever
they openly criticize one another; the constructive criticism
goes on, but it is covert. Unless v/e can keep this covert inter-
action before our eyes we may v/ell be led into one or other of
two very serious errors. We may find ourselves taking the
explicit polemic so seriously as to render a clear understanding
of the views of either side impossible: or v/e may be so
disgusted by the shallow verbalism of the polemic as to push
aside the real issues along with the illusory ones. Against both
temptations v/e must be firm. The perspective of Actual Idealism
is not the perspective of Croce; but Croce occupies an important
and often vital position in the foreground—he is not simply a
blot on the landscape.

'Thus, when in 1934 Gentile wrote an essay on "Economics

and Ethics" (.b.1107 in B.1139) he expressed himself entirely in
terms of the .'concrete' and the 'abstract' logos, the funda-
mental categories of Actual idealism; but-he was thinking
throughout of the dialectical theory of Economics and Ethics set
forth in Uroce's Philosophy of Practice and developed in
Politics and Morals (Cf. Chapter VII, pp. 315-321 below).
 CHAPTER II
"CONCEZIONE UMANISTICA DEL MONDO"

1. The "Abstractness" of Actual Idealism.

Gentile, certainly, is a philosopher of unity; whereas
Uroce as he himself says has been more interested in distinction.
The emphasis which Gentile laid on the unity of the spirit seemed
dangerous to Uroce from the very beginning; he expressed his
doubts in a published discussion with Gentile in La Voce in
1913-1914. The Pure Act he argued might be called by any name
quite indifferently. It was a mystical reality about which
nothing significant could be said: conversely since everything
was reduced to it, it was also a panlogism. Having resolved all
distinctions the actual idealist is quite unable to tell us just
what makes any spiritual activity what it is. 2
Gentile defended himself indignantly against both charges,
by pointing out that the unity of the Pure Act was not the
mystical immediacy of a simple substance but an activity pro-
ductive of distinctions. He was therefore not trying to destroy
the distinctions but only to understand them. This, he claimed,
was the aim of every philosophy worthy of the name, and his
idealism was therefore no more and no less of a panlogism than
any other.

B.296 in B.898, pp. 11-35; Croce, Conversazioni critiche,

(serie seconda), Bari, Laterza, 1950, pp. 67-95.
Cf. the later (violently hostile) critique in Conver-
sazioni critiche, (serie quarta), Bari, Laterza, 1932,
PP. 297-341.
 We need not concern ourselves here with the justice of
the attack or the effectiveness of the defence. For apart from
the metaphysical issue, there is a practical question involved
which is independent of the possible "truth" of Actual Idealism.
It may be that pensiero pensante is alv/ays individualized and
that the 'particular' moment of the dialectic is not lost in the
immediacy of a mystic universal: but it has no necessary
connection with any 'particular' distinction considered in its
particularity. Hence there is considerable danger that the
attention of the actual idealist may be directed on an
abstraction no matter how 'concrete' his interest.
Gentile's philosophy of the Pure Act may be a system of
necessary and universal knowledge; but its very necessity and
universality v/ill render it valueless unless it really illumines
the contingent realities of actual experience. Prof. Holmes,
after a careful and sympathetic study of Gentile's Logic, decided
that:
When the full expression of reality comes to be
the "act of thinking", the Ego must necessarily fall
with.the Noumenon and. the Absolute into disuse. The
Sistema di Logica possesses all of the ingredients
necessary to this final step in the idealist's progress
but it appears that the metaphysical vagueness of "Ego"
is not noted by Gentile. The fault is undoubtedly
explained by the nature of pensiero pensante, for it
seems to connote a self-conscious thinking personality.
But such a connotation would involve a presupposition,
and it is precisely such presuppositions that pensiero
pensante is brought forward to overcome. No thinker
breaks completely from his past; his thinking develops
out of his heritage. The "Ego" is Gentile's Darwin's
Point. ->
If the Transcendental Ego is not really personal and

'Holmes, op. cit. , pp. 226-227.

 42

Gentile's thought is not really egocentric but logocentric there

is literally nothing left but the universal element and it is
hard to see how Actual Idealism can be of any use to anybody,
let it is meant—far more literally than most speculative
theories—to be a 'philosophy of life'. The Pure Act is essen-
tially an act of loving; even in its most theoretical form it
still involves a definite attitude of the will: it is nevex the
simple consciousness of the truth but rather the act of 'cleaving
unto it'. It should therefore possess all the individuality of a
feeling; that is why Gentile defines it sometimes as "person-
ality"; and he uses the term Ego as a way of indicating this
individual, personal character of the act of thinking. But
according to Holmes, "What Gentile should endeavour to stress is
the thinking and not the personality, for it is the thinking that
is central to his doctrine."4

If this is true then Actual Idealism is an abstract logical

doctrine and no more; and it does not matter very much whether we
regard the accusation that it abolishes all distinctions as true
or not, since it certainly will not help us to deal with' them.
In order to understand Actual Idealism we have to make a great
mental effort. If at the end of our "bold journey into the inner
world of consciousness that draws us on into remote regions where
the air may seem at times singularly rarified"^ our only resource
is to retrace our steps, then the journey would seem to be rather
a fruitless undertaking. The study of Gentile's philosophy might

Holmes, op. cit., p. 171.

'Mueller, op. cit., p. 231.
 43
then be compared to the conquest of Mount Everest. A few intrepid
spirits may be willing to attempt it; but their success or failure
will have but little relevance to the ordinary lives of the rest
of us.
Yet the claims that Gentile makes on behalf of his philo-
sophy are not modest. If they are true then it is something that
should matter to us all. As we have seen, his problem is what
he takes to be the central problem of Christianity: and he
presents his solution as the only consistent theory of absolute
humanism—"concezione umanistica del mondo".

2. The Social Aspect of Actual Idealism.

What v/e have to decide, therefore, when we are faced with
this complaint that Actual Idealism is a mass of abstract
generalities, is whether this humanism really v/orks. We shall not
be in a position to make this decision'until we reach the con-
clusion of our investigations. ±sut v/e can begin at once by
pointing out that Gentile's theory is not meant to be considered
in abstracto; the Pure Act must be grasped in its concrete
reality. It is not a Deus absconditus but rather the God of
Giordano Bruno, who is more intimate to us than we are to our-
selves. The "transcendental Ego" is the "profound humanity"
v/ithin us that makes human existence possible. Gentile argues
that in this respect his idealism is rooted in the primitive
intuitions of humanity. The anthropomorphic tendencies of
primitive religion prefigure this truth in mythical form; for
in his nature myths man makes a society between himself and his

6
B.1013 in B.1075, p. 5.
environment, and expresses the real absorption of the environment
into his own personality which comes about through his labours.
When "Nature" becomes a dead concept this primitive intuition of
the truth is obscured.7
But what is far more important than this 'humanization of
nature 1 , is that this profound humanity is the ground of human
society, of community between man and man. For it is only in
virtue of the community that the individual man thinks and speaks
and wills; he becomes conscious of 'himself only within the
society of 'others' who form a social world. Humanity is some-
thing which we do not merely find either in ourselves or in
others; it is something that we build together. It is culture,
civilization, the fabric of which our individual lives are con-
structed and the metaphysical ground of our particular person-
alities: yet it is not something prior to or independent of our
personal intuitions of it. Society is_ social activity, social
responsibility; civilization is civilized living. In its simplest
most primitive form the Transcendental Ego is not thinking,
"pensiero pensante", hut feeling, "sentimento"—the feeling of
universality which so grips us that "in the words of the Italian
poet our tongue is 'moved of itself; and we cannot keep silent
for our soul breaks out and speaks and sings."" This is the very
heart of the act of thought in v/hich everything is contained,
. . . and apart from actual thinking the Ego itself is
an abstraction to be relegated to the great storehouse

7Thus, in a certain sense, the development of scientific

consciousness involves a regression.
8
B.1013 in B.1075, p. 26.
 45

of metaphysical inventions—pure creations of thought

that have no real substance. The Ego is not soul
substance; it is not a thing, even the noblest among
things. It is everything because it is nothing. Y/hen-
ever it is anything, it is a determinate spirit: a
personality that exists in a world of its own—a poem,
an action, a word, a system of thought."
The self-determination of actual thought, the self-creation
of personality is the whole being of the Ego; in its fullness
it is the actualization of Royce's 'Great Person', but it never
loses its absolute historic individuality. It is my feeling, my
striving after understanding and sympathy however universal its
scope or end. Gentile's doctrine that a person is, precisely in
not being is an attempt to express the concept of human perfect-
ibility. The way to this perfection is through the recognition
of community—For v/e are members one of another; but the end is
not a supra-personal social order but rather the perfection of
my personality—Nov/ I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me
says St. Paul. Christ in whom we are members one of another,
is yet iii us as a personal ideal. The Transcendental Ego is thus
the person that v/e aspire to be; but it is also the Great Person
in whom all are united, since it would be impossible for us to
feel that our duty was fulfilled in a world where there was still
strife betv/een ourselves and our fellow men. And as soon as we
realize that Gentile's Pure Act is not merely thinking but also
willing, it becomes apparent that the 'thinking' of the Ego is
not more vital than its 'personality': the tv/o are an indivisible
a priori synthesis. The 'personality' is always dual: there is
the ego from which the dialectic begins and the Ego towards

£.1013 in B.1075, p. 27.

 46

which it tends. The movement of pensiero pensante which is the

life of both terms is at the same time the personality whose
'being' consists in its 'not being'. In concrete terms this
means that the individual maintains his individuality through his
continual effort to create a real community. 'Society' is the
dialectical product of this effort. The progressive movement of
this dialectic is what we call 'Education'.
All his life Gentile v/as an active teacher and education-
alist. The world v/as to him a place of soul-making. His
speculation did not merely arise in the schoolroom; it was to a
large extent a speculation about the schoolroom. Most of his
typical ideas can be traced back to his preoccupation with the
actual process of education and it is almost impossible to study
any aspect of his thought without taking account of these
pedagogical roots. Conversely it is quite impossible to study
his educational theory apart from the general background of his
philosophy. The positive part of his pedagogy is in fact
nothing more or less than his philosophy.
"Humanity," said Mazzini, "is the man who is always
learning": no one has ever taken his words more seriously than
Gentile. His social philosophy therefore can only be properly
understood and appreciated if it is seen as the culmination of
his educational theory: it is as a philosophy of education that
the practical value of Actual Idealism must be assessed. Here
if anywhere the charge of 'abstractness' can be refuted.

•LUCf. Ersilia Liguori, La pedagogia di Giovanni Gentile,

Padua, Editoria Liviana, n.d., p. 24 and passim.
3. The Theory of Man in the "Summary of Educational Theory".
We cannot do better then, than to begin our specific
investigation into Gentile's social philosophy with an analysis
of the theory of Man v/ith v/hich his Educational Theory—the first
full length expression of his mature thought—begins. We shall
have to pass in review much that has been said already—the
nature of Gentile's philosophy renders constant repetition inev-
itable—but it is to be hoped that a certain growth of comprehen-
sion will result.
In interiore nomine habitat Veritas. That is to say,
experience is translucent, but we never penetrate it completely.
"Cognition develops through infinite grades of perfection, with-
out ever being absolutely perfect."H Experience is always an
advance towards the heart of things, a progressive evolution of
new meanings, through which the world we experience becomes part
of us. This evolutionary process exhausts the whole of exper-
ience. For if v/e can only know that which becomes a part of our-
selves, knowledge can only be "true" if its object is somehow a
part of us already; so that if there is to be knowledge at all,
experience cannot be referred to 'something beyond'. In Gentile'
viev/ a radical scepticism would be self-contradictory; 12 and

H B . 1 2 5 1 , p. 5.
^Gentile is quite prepared to use the method of paradox-
ical refutation that is outlawed by Russell's "theory of types".
Indeed, even if we allow that the method has a certain validity
it may well seem that he uses it far too much. It is v/orth
quoting his comment on scepticism, however, since it shows
clearly that in his ov/n mind it is not the paradox so much as the
definition of truth itself that is crucial: "to maintain the
thesis that nothing can be known, one would have to maintain at
the same time that the truth of this thesis is known. And one
thing alone being known, that thing, that is that truth, would
draw the rest after it." (ibid., p. 11).
therefore experience—i.e. actual conscious experience, for a
merely potential experience would be equivalent to the 'something
beyond1 of the realists—must be self-sufficient. We never know
the physical objects that we presuppose: and time is a property
of the objects that we know. Hence, to say that the physical
objects exist before we know them is simply to talk incomprehen-
sibly. The priority of the object known is a function of the
knowing, and a reflection of the "eternity" and universality
that belongs to all truth as possessing a definite value. The
distinction of "before" and "after" results from an analysis of a
synthesis which constitutes the actuality of the knowledge and
which is, properly speaking, always prior.
Quite distinct from this knowledge, however internal, there
is the knowing subject "the principle of the world which is our
v/orld." 3 r^ke knowledge we have of ourselves as knowing is
"self-consciousness", as distinct from the "consciousness" of the
world known. But since all our knowledge is gained through a
laborious process of absorbing the object into ourselves, all
knowledge is really self—consciousness: and on the other hand,
the knov/ing subject is the subject of this knowledge. Simple
self-consciousness and simple consciousness—"pure ego" and
"empirical ego" as Gentile calls them—are abstractions. The
reality is a unity of self-consciousness with consciousness—the
act of consciousness. The empirical ego whose biography we can
describe is always integrated with the actual biographer. This
actual subject is unique—there can be no subjectivity in

B.1251, p. 15 (Gentile's italics).

 49

anything which is left outside of the centre of experience. Hence

the importance for Gentile of the Gospel injunction "Love thy
neighbour as thyself"; for without it his doctrine could never be
more than a crude solipsism—a fate that is logically equivalent
to suicide, since the subject in a world of mere things would
itself be degraded to the status of a thing. 4 r^e absolute
Subject that is unique and all inclusive cannot therefore be the
ordinary individual man:
The concept of 'singular particular man' is
essentially inconsistent with the concept of 'subject':
it is inconsistent—and we should mark this well—alike
whether the singular particular man is some other person
or whether he is myself, set before myself in my limited
singularity and particularity.!^
But if the Subject is not the single person because a solitary ego
becomes a mere thing, the question arises how even the absolute
Subject, since it cannot distinguish itself from other subjects,
avoids falling back to the status of a thing. The answer seems
to be that it never is_ at all; its life is a continual separation
in the individual consciousness between the thing that I a m —
"my limited singularity and particularity"—and the person that
I aspire to be. We have already seen that for this ideal Person
there can be no distinction of persons. Thus I as subject cannot
distinguish myself ideally from other subjects, once their sub-
jectivity is admitted. But if I do not admit these others this
ideal unity gives place to a material unity between myself and the
world of objects. The difference between these two unities—the
ideal and the material—is the gulf that lies between Actual

14cf. B.1013 in B.1075, pp. 35-36.

15B.1251, p. 19.
 5Q-1

Idealism and solipsism.

But is the whole of humanity resolved in this subjectivity?
Man has a body, an object among others, located spatio-temporally
and objectively determined in a myriad other ways. Furthermore
his consciousness of this body involves distinguishable mental
functions. On the basis of these functions it would seem to be
possible to erect theories of 'human nature' as something
independent of historical development ('faculty' theories or a
system of 'grades of consciousness' such as Croce's!7). Gentile
condemns all such attempts out of hand, on the ground that an
analytical theory is bound, of necessity, to treat consciousness
as a fact, rather than as an act. When these functions are viewed
in .the proper light as activities they are all alike revealed as
forms of the fundamental act of thinking.
The most elementary of these forms is what we call
sensation. From the immediacy of sensation all spiritual progress
begins. It is usual to distinguish sensations into "internal"
and "external" according to their supposed origin; in fact, it
is the origin or stimulus that is thus classified by reference to
spatial position relative to the body. And this "space" is with-
in consciousness—if it were not it would be possible to locate

Gentile does argue, however, that this ideal is always

realized, though at different levels, and that it is only from an
external point of view that we can say that a certain person has
betrayed this ideal; whereas if we understood his act strictly
as an act we should perceive its immanent universality. So that
in a way his theory is a kind of moral solipsism—the solipsism
of the Gospel precept "Judge not that ye be not judged."
•^The reference (B.1251, p. 25) is clear, though Gentile
does not mention Croce by name.
consciousness (the soul) within it. If we attend strictly to the
sensation such spatial reference becomes impossible. Certainly
we can distinguish our body from other things—-but not in terms
of simple sensation; for every sensation is complete in itself
and unrelated to other things. All sensations have an identical
form: and all are absolutely diverse in content. Even the
distinction of form and content is not really legitimate since
the sensing and the thing sensed cannot be separated; sensation
is the most primitive form of the synthesis a priori of self-
consciousness with consciousness, pure ego and empirical ego.
The distinction only becomes legitimate if by the 'form' we mean
the abstract schema of sensation, v/hile the 'content' denotes the
determination that gives concreteness to the form.
We might perhaps endeavour to establish a distinction
between 'internal' and 'external' worlds by opposing this
immediate concrete sensation to 'feeling'—the psychic reaction
of varying intensity that can be assigned its place in a scale of
pleasures and pains. But what should v/e mean then, by the
'inward state' that sustains this feeling? Is pleasure the mere
absence or removal of pain (the fulfilling of a need) or,
contrariwise, is pain simply an impediment in the normal flow of
pleasure? These are insoluble questions as long as we cling to
the fiction of a pre-existent soul that suffers and reacts to
sensation. This substantial soul is only a shadow projected back
into the past after sensation begins. The soul is actual sen-
sation: and pleasure and pain are properties of sensation not
reactions to_ it. Pleasure is simply the self-consistency of
sense experience, and pain is the presence of an unresolved
 52

inconsistency. Hence the former is the reality and the latter

is a privation. Pain like death is not a positive part of life;
it is only the sense of a limit. We cannot grasp it; it vanishes
like Eurydice when we look it in the face. Feeling is the
presence of self-consciousness to consciousness; it is always
positive:
. . . I cannot suffer without being aware of it. And
when I become aware of it, it is not I who suffer,
because I am rather the one who is aware of the suffering:
and between suffering and being aware of suffering there
is this not inconsiderable difference: that in suffering,
the suffering would have to be the act, the very life
itself of the Ego (an absurd expression, since to suffer
is to be passive, and a "passive action" would be like
a "dark light"); while in awareness of suffering, the
suffering is no longer the act of the Ego, the actual
Ego: at the most it is what the Ego was previously,
i.e. what it now seems to have been, m virtue of its
present awareness of suffering.IB
The pain may be said to grow with our knowledge of it; but this
knov/ledge is also a gradual alienation from it: hence the healing
pov/er of time. Pain is gradually purified into pleasure; and
the positivity of pleasure consists in this catharsis. There is
no pleasure without its pain: the soul in Arcadia would vegetate
and become a thing.
We must pause here for a moment to consider this doctrine
which is of considerable importance; for the form of the argument
is repeated elsewhere in dealing with such problems as evil and
error. This is no place for any attempt at final criticism, but
it should be noted that here Gentile is in serious danger of
doing what Holmes says he should do and we have said that he
should not. He emphasizes the 'thinking' at the expense of the

'B.1251, p. 37 (my italics).

'personality'. Because I know that I sufier is it any less "I"
who am suffering? The only "I" that ceases to suffer in and
through this consciousness is not the actual Ego but only the
"pure ego"—the empty Kantian 'form' of the 'I think'. To
suppose that this is sufficient to solve the problem of pain and
evil is childish. Gentile does in fact recognize that the real
"overcoming" of pain is a laborious process of self-creation.
But his verbal recognition that the being of a person lies in his
non-being does not hinder him from laying far too much emphasis
on the positive moment of the dialectic of pensiero pensante.
We should notice, however, that the "pain" of which Gentile
seems to be thinking is emotional suffering. Nov/, since disap-
pointment or loss can only be felt v/here the subject has freely
surrendered its freedom, we may say that all grief is voluntary.
We can only grieve for a love freely given. Hence the conscious-
ness of grief, disappointment or toil is truly a "conquest"
(superamento) of its negativity in that our acceptance of it is
a positive act of our own will. For 'pain' in this sense,
Gentile's argument has a certain validity: but he appears to
imagine that it can be extended to cover all the various meanings
of the v/ord. This would involve a disastrous equivocation
between the transcendental Ego and the 'pure' Ego—the empty
form of consciousness which Gentile himself declared to be an
abstraction. This point will be of some importance v/hen we come
to consider Gentile's theory of the inner nature of force and
compulsion.
As we have seen, sensation and emotional reaction form an
indivisible whole—a synthesis whose total reality is constituted
 54

in and for our consciousness of it. what we call "perception" is

only the concreteness of sensation; an "unconscious" sensation is
really a contradiction. Gentile gives short shrift to modern
psychology:
. . . The science of the subconscious belongs among the
natural sciences, not the sciences of the spirit: but
it is only a spurious science, that applies improper
methods to nature, just as magic and astrology did
formerly.19
Only in a very relative sense can we legitimately speak of
perceiving some reality of v/hich we v/ere not previously conscious.
Life does precede philosophy in the ordinary sense of the terms:
but it is precisely the reflexivity of life that constitutes
philosophy—life is consciousness, sensation, and philosophy is
the self-consciousness of that consciousness, perception.
"Sensation" pure and simple is the "past", the logo astratto; it
exists only within the concreteness of perception. 'Psycho-
physics' puts the cart before the horse, therefore, in seeking
the cause of experience v/ithin the content of experience. And
the same can be said of associational psychology which uses the
correlation of abstract sensations ("forms" of actual sensation)
to explain the process of thinking and remembering. No such
multitude of abstract representations of past sensations actually
exists: sensation is unique. it is the living process of the
subject v/hich preserves its own past and relates it to the
present. Hence the problem of experience is not to explain
memory but to explain forgetfulness.2 How does the past lose

19
B.1251, p. 42.
20
ibid., p. 54.
 55

its concrete determinacy so that vast areas of our experience are

reduced to 'typical' forms? Gentile claims that strictly speaking
we neither forget nor remember. Memory is simply the organi-
zation of present reality: and forgetfulness is the recognition
of a limit in this process. "When we recognize that v/e have
forgotten something we do not then recover our grasp of what had
slipped from us, but we grasp for the first time v/hat had never
really been grasped."21
The great instrument in the organization of experience is
language. Of course in speaking of it as an 'instrument' we are
treating it in the abstract: in actual use language is the
organizing of reality. No two utterances are "the same": one
is my_ word—concrete, unique, intelligent; the other is a v/ord—
an abstract, empty universal, the intelligible. How do men come
to agree then about the meaning of words? They would not be men
if they did not; "the ears are different, but the spirit is the
same." We understand by wanting to understand, and by working
to attain community. A 'v/ord' is not a simple physical fact that
we can abstract from the total reality which is a universe of
meaning. If we did not recognize its meaning, however
imperfectly, the mere sound would not be a word. Language is the
concrete consciousness that we have of our own sensations: it is
the body, not the clothing or the vehicle of thought, and since
thinking is self-creative language is always novel. Where v/ords
refer to objects it may seem that the 'word' does not in fact
coincide with the 'meaning1. ±iut this is only in appearance.

B.1251, p. 55.
 56

The 'word' would not have a meaning at all, if it did not coincide
at least with an abstract representation of the 'thing' meant.
Experience then is a developing process of sensation.
There is no absolute immediacy anywhere, though looking back we
can fix a single moment of the process and treat it as immediate.
Only the total process might perhaps be called immediate—but it
is really a process of self-mediation. In this process there are
no absolute distinctions; more particularly, the distinction of
theory and practice, thought and will is dissolved. This dis-
tinction arises from a comparison of certain psychic acts with
certain others. Where thought presupposes the reality which is
its object action creates—or so it seems. ±sut when we recog-
nize that the concept of reality involved is false, it is not
hard to show that the distinction is purely abstract. Once it
is granted that the only reality that can be known is a reality
which creates itself, the opposition between knowing and doing
becomes purely ideal. There is no absolute reality complete in
itself and separate from thought; such an independent reality is
unthinkable. There is only the gradual increase of knowledge
in experience. And just as thought has no independent presup-
position, so action does not produce an independent result: the
v/ill to do something is not a thing distinct from the doing of
it. Premeditation, where it occurs, is part of the real action—
otherwise there would be no sense in calling the action premedi-
tated. "Chi agisce e chi puo agire" ("The man who acts is the
man who has power to act"); real thinking and real willing
coincide in the experience of self-mastery—mastery of 'self
being equivalent to mastery of the world of that self. This
coincidence is what Gentile calls autoctisi.dtL
Within this eternal unity, the 'presupposed' world of
thought reappears as the logo astratto, the sensation contained
in perception. Gentile says that this abstract content which
appears as a presupposition is sheer unconscious will as it
appears to thought: it is a blind and opaque nature that
gradually becomes self-conscious and intelligent. This is a
strange and perplexing doctrine: it certainly seems rather
strained to say that "Sensation is will and perception is know-
ledge. "23 jH'or the v/orld that appears to us in sensation is far
from being willed by us. Yet that is what Gentile appears to
claim. What his claim means is only that the natural world is
really there: it acts, it resists, it is stubborn.24 What we
call 'our* will is really thought striving to objectify itself,
to make itself will, that is to make itself count in the world.
Since Gentile has annulled the distinction between external sen-
sation and internal impulse, he cannot distinguish nature in
general from the nature of the subject. The whole of reality is

" A term coined from the Greek by Spaventa. KT<.<TC£, was

the word used by the Greek Fathers of the Church to denote the
creation of the world ex nihilo.
2
3]3.i251, p. 84. Basically this may seem to be identical
v/ith the views of Fichte and Croce. Hut if the interpretation
v/hich follov/s is correct, as I believe it is, it can be seen that
there is a real divergence of view. There is no "circle" of the
spirit in Gentile. The moments of the dialectic are eternal.
They are not "overcome" yet they are not distinct—they constitute
an a priori synthesis..
2
4Gentile does not explain this doctrine himself. The
proposed explanation should therefore be treated v/ith caution.
But some view of this sort seems to be implicit in what he says
about Rousseau's theory of educational discipline. (B.1252,
pp. 38-39).
absorbed in the gradual conquest of self. But we cannot conquer
ourselves until we are 'selves': and we cannot become selves
except by self-conquest. That is why the synthesis of self and
world is a priori; there is no sensation however primitive that
is not already instinct with thought. " . . . the spiritual act
is never a self-creation that must be contemplated and watched
over afterwards; it is always, simultaneously a self-creation
that is self-perception, and vice versa." -^
Matter is thus resolved into spirit. A contrary reso-
lution would be impossible because consciousness is a prior
condition of any investigation of reality. For the same reason
a coherent dualism is unthinkable because it is impossible to
correlate spirit and matter without materializing the former.
Matter is an essentially indifferent multiplicity—it is
infinitely divisible. While the spirit has no parts but is an.
organic whole. Anything considered as having an essential unity
is spiritualized; but as soon as we place it in relation to other
things it becomes once again a material object. Even a plurality
of spiritual reals would be material, at least to the extent of
having certain relations to one another which were accidental to
the reals themselves, like the relations which exist between
atoms or parts of matter. For if these relations were essential
then reality would be an a priori unity not a plurality.
But must we not confess with Spinoza that we do experience
bodies having spatial position in a world of external relations?
Two answers can be given. Firstly, it is true that any reality

25
B.1251, p. 84.
can be regarded in abstracto as simply material. "Even the
Divine Comedy, in the words of the cynical proverb, is good for
wrapping sardines."2" Secondly, in asserting the sole reality of
the spirit Gentile does not mean to imply the non-existence of
the human or any other body, but only to deny the materialist
interpretation of these indubitable realities. Reality is the
actual process of experience; and this can only be understood as
an organic unity, i.e. from within. The processive character of
this unity involves a continual generation of multiplicity within
the original" synthesis. Life produces nature, which then remains
as an obstacle to be penetrated and brought to life again. "We
have only to think something, and it becomes unknowable; we have
only to look v/ithin ourselves and we become alien to ourselves."27
His point is that objectivity can be conquered. If it could not,
consciousness would be altogether impossible. Thought is
eternally negative; but equally it is positive. It separates
itself from its object only to return to it, for the object
constitutes its own history. The human body shares in this
historical process—it grows: and as it grov/s to maturity man
comes to control it more and more. Only through it does his
thinking become actual as an intelligent will. ° The paralytic
does not properly will to move; it is not merely 'ought' but also
'will' that implies 'can'. "In fact power is the essential

26
B.1251, p. 94.
27
ibid., p. 197.
pft
c
Thoughts as such have a moral value certainly: but then
there is no thinking without effort and bodily fatigue.
 60

constituent of the subject and is only distinct from it in the

abstract."2" The body is the product of the spirit so far as it
is controlled by the will: and the effort to understand the body
is similarly a self-creation. For it is known only as a content
of consciousness: and that consciousness informs every bodily
movement with its own personality. The arm of the paralytic is
no longer truly his own and hence it is not felt as his own. But
in the normal course of events man exercises control far beyond
the limits of his own body; and all control of matter involves
its spiritualization: we have to follow nature, entering into
the life of things, making them part of our spiritual community,
in order to master them. The Ego, being one, has only one true
body: the whole material universe. "Par l'espace, l'univers me
comprend et m''engloutit comme un point; par la pensee je le
comprends." This quotation from Pascal stands as the motto for
the Theory of Mind as Pure Act. The aim of this theory is to
shov/ that the first "comprehension" is itself comprehended in the
second, and gets its whole meaning therefrom. "And therefore,
man must return to himself, the absolute Siibject, the subject
that is wholly subject leaving nothing outside of itself, not
merely to understand himself but to understand the world."30

29
B.1251, p. 103.
3°ibid., p. 106.
 61

CHAPTER III
THE GROWTH OF GENTILE»S HUMANISM

1. Forward with Hegel.

The humanism sketched in the last chapter developed only
gradually: there lies behind it a history of some fifteen years
of continual reformulation and reconstruction. Actual Idealism
came to birth only after a prolonged wrestling with the past and
particularly with Hegel. This wrestling, and the ambiguities and
unrecognized contradictions that slowly worked themselves out in
it, were nov/here more clearly illustrated than in Gentile's
various writings about human society.
The ambiguity in Gentile's attitude towards Hegel was a
natural product of the cultural situation in Italy at the turn of
the century. The new idealism in its reaction against the pre-
vailing positivism turned naturally to the great nineteenth
century tradition in Germany. The reinstatement of Hegel was its
first task; his message must be understood and restated plainly
enough to refute the ignorant criticisms and disdain of the
positivists and others. In this 'reinterpretation'y however,
there was a tendency to confuse what Hegel said with what he
ought to have said. ''What Hegel really meant' was often at odds
in this reconstruction with the system that the professor at
Berlin actually constructed.
This Janus character in Gentile's early thought is a
legacy from Spaventa, who remained all his life a loyal Hegelian
although, in his continual efforts to rethink the whole course of
the idealist tradition, he was more or less unconsciously offering
 62

quite a novel interpretation of the Hegelian dialectic. Gentile

held that a return to the teaching of Spaventa v/as the key to
future progress. His teacher at Pisa, Donato Jaja, had been one
of Spaventa's pupils, and from him Gentile had learned to revere
the Neapolitan thinker as "the master of philosophic knowledge,
not only at Naples but for the whole of Italy."! In 1900 he
edited and published a volume of Philosophical Writings by
Spaventa which provoked some hostile criticism. This did not
shake his resolve; concerning the most prominent of his critics,
Bernardino Varisco, he wrote:
. . . In all honesty, his arguments cannot dissuade me
from continually repeating to the people of Italy:-
There is a tradition that we must take up again and
develop if we wish to regain the right road; and that
tradition is in the works of Spaventa.2
In pursuance of this resolve he repiiblished several more
volumes of Spaventa's v/ork during the next decade. The first of
these was the Principles of Ethics (1904).^ For this book he
wrote an introduction v/hich provides a valuable index of his
attitude at this time to Hegel's political theory.
Political existence is the second (objective) 'moment' of
Spirit, which is the last great stage in the ideal development
of Hegel's Idea. Behind it lie the whole realms of Logic and
Nature, and beyond it only the great triad of the Absolute I d e a —

-LB.76 in B.618, p. 1.
2
B.68 in B.618, p. 52.
3spaventa's own title, Studies in Hegel's Ethics, is at
once more modest and a more accurate description of the work which
is a lucid, though brief, commentary on the ethico-political
theory expounded in the Encyclopaedia.
 63

Art, Religion, and Philosophy. Gentile accepts and defends this

over-arching structure:
Everybody, I take it, admits . . . that logic should
be considered as the introduction or the propaedeutic
to all the sciences, and that its object . . . is
therefore logically prior to the object of all the
sciences of the spirit. And I do not suppose that there
is any need to hold forth about the place that Nature
and the Spirit, respectively, occupy in the triad; for
nowadays there is even a tendency to over-emphasize
the dependence of the latter on the former, and every-
one talks of mens sana in corpore sano.4
The only sign here of the revolution to come lies in the passing
reference to the "tendency to over-emphasize" the dependence of
the spirit on nature.
Within the realm of Objective Spirit, which is the world
of social relations, there are again three distinct moments:
Abstract Right, Morality, the Ethical World. Gentile does not
specifically associate himself with this triad but he does
defend Hegel against certain misunderstandings, and he is impli-
citly committed to acceptance of his own interpretation of
Hegel's meaning. The State, he explains, is the synthesis, the
realization of the moral idea; but this does not mean that the
sanctions of positive law are the source of the sense of duty.
Morality is an earlier moment of the dialectic: certainly it is
abstract and empty, and only receives content in history, i.e.
in the ethical v/orld of the State; nevertheless-, "Custom is
legitimated by morality; not vice versa."5 The moral law of
conscience is the transcendental ground of positive jurisprudence;

4B.98 in B.618, pp. 146-147.

5ibid., p. 148.
similarly "abstract right" is the transcendental original of all
concrete civil rights. These transcendental presuppositions are
ideal moments of the State: they are not realities. Conse-
quently the genesis of Morality from "abstract right".can only
be an ideal one: abstract right is the outward fulfilment of
liberty while morality is its inward recognition. The former is
logically prior because what is moral must be right while v/hat
is abstractly right need not be moral; so that morality involves
right but not vice versa. The concepts of crime and punishment
form the bridge between them because, unless the inner right is
violated in the outer world, this non-equivalence of the two
concepts would not become explicit, and we should never progress
beyond the first. Punishment at this ideal level is internal to
the conscience of the criminal; it is the process through v/hich
he comes to recognize the law that he has broken.
At this point we step outside of the pattern established
by Hegel. The general concept of Abstract Right and Morality as
transcendentals is surely the correct interpretation of Hegel.^
For that matter there is no question that punishment is a tran-
scendental notion also; the reassertion of the law need not, as
Hegel himself says, involve any attempt at the restoration of the
empirical status quo. But where Spaventa (and Gentile) hold that
the criminal himself must be brought to recognize that the law
is the "truth" even of his subjective criminal volition, Hegel
seems content that this inner significance of punitive justice is

b
Cf. T. M. Knox, Hegel's Philosophy of Right, translated
with notes; Oxford University Press, 1942, pp. 345—346, 347.
appreciated by the judge as a rational observer. We are morally
bound, in Hegel's view, to treat the criminal as a rational
being: if he has so abused his reason as not to appreciate
rational treatment, so much the worse for him. The crucial case
in which the difference betv/een the two views becomes apparent
is that of the death penalty. As is well known, Hegel supported
the death penalty, arguing that it was the 'right' of the
criminal as a rational being to sacrifice himself in order that
the law which constituted his ov/n moral personality might be
vindicated. But if, as Gentile puts it in summing up Spaventa's
doctrine, "the punishment of the delinquent . . . criticizes the
individual subjectivity of his will, in order tp_ bring him to
recognize the right in his own secret heart (sua stessa intimita),
and so to attain true liberty,"7 then the death penalty is
automatically invalidated because it does not operate within
consciousness. Spaventa explicitly says that "the death penalty
and perpetuity of punishment are in evident contradiction with
this conception."" Gentile clearly associates himself with
Spaventa's view;9 and his own mature theory of punishment is so
closely related to Spaventa's that he ought always to have
maintained the same attitude, though in fact he did not do so. °
This "intimate self-criticism" is the transcendental ground

7
B.98 in B.618, p. 151 (my italics).
8
B.98, p. 114.
"Not merely in his Preface but in his biographical study
of Spaventa: cf. B. 49, pp. CXI-UXII; or B.775, pp. 131-133.
10
Cf. B.1107 i n B.1139, p . 284 ( c i t e d below, Chapter V I I ,
p . 318.
 66

and justification of all the external physical sanctions of the

law, the executive and the judiciary. It is essential that the
subjective inwardness of the "moral" attitude should be objec-
tively determined by the machinery of justice because man is a
social animal. The sinner cannot be expected to rise above his
sin simply by his own efforts. He "has need of the universal
spirit," and therefore coercion is an instrument of the first
importance in social education. • But coercion will be effective
only in so far as he recognizes its rationality. Morality and
coercion are not diametrically opposed: the former is not
purely subjective, nor is the latter purely objective since only
through moral assent can coercion ever be successful.
The same tendency tov/ards a 'subjectified' interpretation
of Hegel is observable in what Gentile goes on to say about his
concept of the State. There is of course a certain ideal sub-
jectivity in Hegel's account: "the State" is a rational ideal
excogitated by the philosophical historian. Any Hegelian would
therefore support Gentile's contention that the will of the State
must be moral, and is not to be confused with any egoistic or
2
arbitrary action. But some might hesitate to answer the accu-
sation that Hegel returns to the classical notion that man exists
for the State, by saying, "'Man' and 'State' are one and the
same. Man is the State; and the State is man; and the State is
the end of man, because man is his own end, inasmuch as in the

"B.98 in B.618, p. 155.

:
Cf. Knox, op_. cit. , pp. 362-363.
 67

State the political nature of man is realized (si celebra)." 3

The State, therefore, is fully moral because it represents
the moral ideal of man. But morality is not properly a charac-
teristic of the Absolute Spirit. V/ithin the world the spirit
is necessarily moral: but in its absolute realization the
qualification would be without meaning: "A single spirit, a
solitary God, may create a thing of beauty, but he cannot do a
good action. " 4 'fhus it would seem that in 1904 Gentile
accepted not only the distinction of Subjective, Objective, and
Absolute Spirit, but also the distinction of theory and
practice.!-' j ^ ^ ^g was a i r e ady moving towards the resolution of
both distinctions.
For he is mainly concerned to establish the 'immanent'
character of 'the Hegelian super-world of Art, Religion, and
Philosophy. The three moments of Absolute Spirit are eternal,

! 3 B . 9 8 in B.618, pp. 153-154. After all Hegel did say

"Es ist der Gang Gottes in der V/e It dass der Staat ist" and one
may well doubt whether Hegel would have accepted the equation
'Gott - Mensch'. But Gentile'rejected from the beginning any
theological or transcendent interpretation of Hegel. In 1904
he found fault v/ith Baillie for attaching too much importance to
the theological element in Hegel's thought (cf. B.105 in B.701,
p. 96).
This tendency towards a completely immanent interpretation
of Hegel is the distinguishing mark of the whole Italian school.
But this particular example of it—the immanent union of individ-
ual and State—is more than an example of the general tendency:
it is the germ of Actual Idealism.
14ibid., p. 154.
!-JIn 1921 when he reprinted this essay in the first volume
of his Critical Essays (B.618) he added a footnote explaining
that he was here concerned only to clarify the interpretation of
Hegel given by Spaventa. He refers the reader to the Theory of
Mind as Pure Act for his ov/n "more profound" theory. But, as we
proceed, we shall see reason to believe that at the time of
v/riting he shared Spaventa's view.
 68

and therefore in a sense they are outside of history. Great

works of art are certainly important historical events; so is
the emergence of a religion or the promulgation of a truth. But
the beauty of art, the God of religion, the truth of philosophy,
are not essentially connected with the particular circumstances
of their origin, as the events of history are with geographical
and temporal conditions and particular agents. But it is only
in this sense of being independent of historical conditions that
these supreme aspects of the spirit are Absolute. The super-
world is still in the world; the perfect liberation of the
spirit takes place within experience. The Absolute is "neither
above nor below the world, but v/ithin the world, and therefore
v/ithin history, just as its critics would have it."!°
The progressive deepening of this conception of the
eternal v/ithin time eventually led to the development of a
philosophy of pure immanence. But there is still a long way to
go. Everything v/hich in Hegel's theory falls outside of the
real world of experience (the realm of Objective Spirit), is
reduced in this essay to an ideal moment or aspect of the real
world. But these ideal moments form an inviolable logical
system to v/hich the world of experience must conform. It is
necessary that the universal—this a_ priori system—be immanent
in the particular—the world of history: but this necessity
itself is something transcendent, tyrannical. This contradiction
betrays the weakness, the essentially transitional character of
Gentile's thought at this stage.

16B.98 in B.618, pp. 155-156.

 69

2. Gentile and Marx.

Something of this same ambiguity is apparent in his early
writings on the theory of history.17' There is the same tendency
towards absolute immanence combined with a belief in an a. priori
system of universal principles. Already in 1897 he was
expressing some doubts about the distinction betv/een the facts
(res gestae) and the history of the facts (historia rerum
gestarum) and thus moving towards a more extreme form of imman-
ence than Croce has ever held; yet he defended the idea of a
'philosophy of history' against Croce's attacks. Although he
had qualms about the historian taking the facts as given, he
allowed the possibility of the philosopher taking the history as
given, and seeking to find an a priori pattern immanent within
it.
This belief in the a priori method in philosophy led
Gentile to disagree with Croce about Marxism. He v/as never a
Marxist. He v/as not even a pupil of Labriola as Croce was;
and he had little sympathy with the socialist movement: yet on
the whole, it is fair to say that he took Marx more seriously as
a philosopher than Croce did.
In the first of his two essays on Marxism ("A critique of
historical materialism", published in 1897) he was concerned
with its 'historical' rather than v/ith its ''materialist'

17
C f . B.14 and B.31 in B.615, pp. 137-152 and 1-60.
Nevertheless the two short monographs that he wrote on
Marx before the beginning of his twenty-fifth year were strongly
influenced by, and largely based upon, the writings of Labriola.
19
B.ll in B.1157, pp. 149-196.
 =71
70

character. He agreed with Croce that it was inaccurate to speak

of "historical materialism" since the materialism was a later
development grafted onto a theory of history: but as against
Croce, he held that this original theory of history v/as a fully
fledged philosophy, not simply a practical method of inquiring
into historical problems. 20 He would never have concerned him-
self with Marxism, if it had not seemed to him to be more than a
historical method combined with a revolutionary programme. He
was interested in the theoretical relationship between Marx and
Hegel, not in Marxian Communism and the social problems that it
claimed to solve.
Hence he draws a careful distinction, at the beginning of
this essay, between "existent social conditions" which are the
content with which science begins, and the "formal elaboration of
the spirit"—i.e. the discovery of an a priori pattern immanent

In his Preface to the first publication of these studies

in book form (La filosofia di Marx, Pisa, Spoerri, 1899) Gentile
remarked that Marx' materialist metaphysics v/as an artificial
construction produced long after the development of his revolu-
tionary doctrine. Prof. Spirito (in Giovanni Gentile; La vita
e il pensiero, Volume I, Florence, Sansoni, 1948, p. 2>H"T~ha&
drawn attention to the apparent contradiction between this con-
clusion and an important passage in the second study (cf. B.1157,
pp. 256-257) in which Gentile uses one of Marx' early letters
to his father to prove that "the thought of Marx is essentially
philosophical." But once we realize that one of the main ideas
of the first study is to maintain, against Croce, that Marx'
revolutionary doctrine is a philosophy of history the contra-
diction vanishes. When Gentile says thaT Marx proposed "to take
up a position in philosophy after conceiving his revolutionary
doctrine" he is thinking of the metaphysics of dialectical
materialism. Hence this contention is quite consistent v/ith the
view that the 'revolutionary doctrine' is itself a genuine philo-
sophy of history. In the very sentence to which Spirito refers
Gentile expresses his conclusion thus: "the philosophy of
history (la filosofia storica) did not develop out of the philo-
sophy (la filosofia), but the latter was arbitrarily dragged out
of the Tormer. " (H.H57, p. 144).
 71

in these conditions—v/hich constitutes the essence of all truly

scientific activity.2J- Marx' claim to originality lies in the
fact that by applying the Hegelian dialectic he produced a new
viev/ of this immanent pattern. He boasted that he had put
history back on its feet by substituting economic realities in
the place of Hegel's Idea. 22 But his theory, like Hegel's, is
an attempt to determine the course of human history a priori.
This history is not mechanical but conscious; yet the
course of its development is "necessary" in the sense that it is
immanent in the nature of things and can therefore be foreseen.23
Marxism is "scientific", anti-utopian, precisely because it is
founded on this a priori logic of reality. Croce protested that
the political activity of Marx and Engels was eloquent testimony
to their belief in the ability of the individual to reshape
reality according to an ideal; Gentile replied that Marx and
Engels v/ould have argued that their moral fervour in the cause of
socialism v/as a direct result of the operation of this immanent

^B.ll in H.1157, p. 152.

22
ibid., p. 174. But Gentile points out that Marx' natur-
alism was very different from evolutionary positivism because of
these Hegelian roots. A theory of socialism cannot be founded
on the biological struggle to survive, tor natural selection
operates on a world of discrete individuals, whereas society and
conscious social cooperation are a necessary presupposition of
the class struggle. For Marx, as for Hegel, human existence is
essentially ethical (ibid., pp. 166-168).
23
Gentile insists that, since what the philosopher observes
are the essential or universal qualities immanent in the present,
no prevision is really involved in the philosophical analysis of
history (p. 180, fn.). This is just the sort of argument he
later used to prove the essentially 'past' character of nature:
so that from his mature point of viev/ the "philosophy of history"
turns the spirit into nature.
 72

law; it followed naturally from their understanding of the econ-

omic realities.
The novelty of Marxism in relation to the Hegelian philo-
sophy lies, therefore, not in the "form"—for both alike are
dialectical philosophies of history: it consists simply in the
substitution of one content for another—and Gentile concludes
that even this substitution is really only an apparent change.
The Hegel and the Idea that the Marxists oppose is a fantasy
that never existed anywhere outside of their own heads. The
progress of the Idea is nothing other than the "self-critical
life of things" (autocritica che e_ nelle cose stesse) of v/hich
Labriola speaks.24 This 'self-criticism' is no more than a meta-
phor since the criticism can only take place in the conscious-
ness of mankind. The childish interpretation of Hegel's idealism
advanced by Engels—"instead of considering his own ideas as
intellectual reflections of the objects and movements of the
real world, he obstinately refused to consider the objects of the
real world and the changes that they undergo, except as so many
reflections of his ov/n ideas"2-5—is scarcely worth considering:
and as soon as it is set aside it is obvious that none of the
criticisms by v/hich historical materialism seeks to oppose itself
to Hegel's theory possesses any validity. The "matter" of Marx

is included in the Hegelian "Idea", and—when the Marxian concept

^B.ll in B.1157, pp. 175-176.

25
Cited by Gentile (B.ll in B.1157, p. 176; cf. B.30 in
B.1157, pp. 265-266 and fn.) from Engels Utopian and Scientific
Socialism.
 73

is fully understood—coincides with it. ° Unfortunately, Gentile

adds, Marx did not understand the absolute, as opposed to the
relative, aspect of the dialectical Idea; and therefore his
theory is only "one of the most calamitous deviations of Hegelian
thought."2' This terse condemnation in the last paragraph of
the essay is far more violent than any conclusion we might
reasonably have expected, in consideration of the general tone of
Gentile's 'critique'.
The second study—"The Philosophy of Praxis"—is a longer
and more elaborate investigation of the "Materialism" of Marx—
reconstructed by Gentile himself from the eleven theses advanced
u
by Marx in criticism of Feuerbach. In place of the dead object
(gegenstand) of past materialism, Marx substituted human sensi-
tive activity (sinnliche Thatigkeit). In so doing he returned
from Feuerbach to Hegel and posited a self-critical activity in
things: it is true that where for Hegel this activity was
intellectual, for Marx it was sensitive; but this is a compara-
tively unimportant distinction, if not quite illusory. For, once
it is granted that Marx1 sensitive activity is self-critical,

^ B.ll in B.1157, p. 193. This conclusion demonstrates

the strictly theoretical nature of Gentile's interest in Marx,
for of course he does not mean that the theory of the class;
struggle is identical with Hegel's theory of history, but only
that both are theories of the dialectical Idea immanent in
history, and therefore that Marxism does not involve a new meta-
physical principle but merely a limited understanding of the old
one.
2
7jbid., p. 196.
2
&Given by Gentile (B.30 in B.1157, pp. 206-209). Spirito
remarks that Gentile's reconstruction based on these theses and
without knowledge of-Marx' own development of them proved remark-
ably accurate (Vita e Pensiero, Volume I, p. 321).
this activity becomes the root of everything that Hegel meant by
'thought'. 'Sense' and 'intellect' are opposite faces of the
same coin. Gentile could not but agree with Marx' implicit
criticism of any abstract intellectualism; not for him the
Olympian disinterestedness of Croce. The philosopher, if he
takes his task seriously, cannot remain indifferent to practical
programmes; for his thought is a practical programme—it is the
practical self-criticism of the real world. Man can only under-
stand a world which he has made: this principle is to Gentile
the distinguishing mark of a true immanent idealism and he finds
examples of the same urge towards concreteness in such thinkers
as Socrates, Vico, Fichte, and Froebel.
In substituting activity for passivity Marx frees humanity
from the chains of mechanism: man is not a product of his
environment—rather he produces it. Reality is a closed circle
of educational action and reaction. "There is the society that
educates, and the society that is educated: the same society
v/hen educated returns again to educating. "29 Life is a continual
action and reaction of subject and object—a revolutionary
process (umwaizende Praxis). No one can stand outside of this
social process—the individual and his environment are not
entities having merely external relations, but terms of an a
priori dialectic.
Hence Marxism is the absolute antithesis of traditional
atomic materialism. The Marxian atom is determined by its
relations to the whole: society is fundamental—it is not an

2
9B.3Q in B.1157, p. 222.
accidental imposition as it was for previous materialists such
as Epicurus or Hobbes. 'Man' can only mean 'man-in—society':
and being-in-society involves action and reaction, historical
development. Society educates the individual and vice versa.
On the one side, then, we have the laudatores temporis acti, on
the other the revolutionaries. In general the revolutionaries
have their way, only to find themselves defending their revolu-
tion against a new one. In striving to understand history,
therefore, we must seize on the essential qualities of a
situation and not be misled by survivals or aberrations, Utopias
or pockets of reaction. This was precisely what Hegel tried to
do in his theory of the Weltgeist—"now an object of satire,
but only for those who do not understand it."3°
The metaphysical necessity involved in a dialectical
philosophy of history such as this has nothing "fatal" about it.
It is a rational necessity, and hence a moral imperative for
those that understand it. Here is nothing but 'the truth that
shall make you free'.
Certainly Gentile's initial attitude to Marx was
unfriendly: but in the event he found himself defending the
thesis that Marx was a philosopher before he was a revolutionary
and that his philosophy was basically sound. His original aim
was undoubtedly to justify Hegel against the Marxists: he ful-
filled this intention by exhibiting Marx as a thorough Hegelian
and a true pupil of the whole tradition of German idealism.
This makes his uncompromising conclusion in the first study look

30B.30 in B.1157, p. 253.

 <76

somewhat odd: and it can scarcely be granted that his earlier

condemnation is consistent with the sympathetic criticism of the
second study, v/hich concludes more reasonably by insisting that
Marx' metaphysical materialism was never really absorbed in the
dialectic of his philosophy of history, which was concerned
entirely with living activity—"The whole history of previous
philosophy should have warned him that his two principles—form
(= praxis) and content (= matter)—were irreconcilable."31

It is not within the competence of the present writer to

decide whether this completely Hegelian interpretation of Marx
does justice to the great socialist or not. It should be
mentioned, however, that Lenin himself declared Gentile's studies
to be among the most noteworthy of those produced by non-
Marxists. 3 2 Por us the interest of the work lies rather in the
degree to v/hich Gentile agrees with the Marx he has pictured.
He makes a strict distinction himself between form and content,
the "elaboration of concepts" and the "actual conditions of
society"; but he is at pains to make clear that the a priori
method does not involve any attempt to dispense v/ith exper-
ience: 33 and j.n fact the outcome of his labours is almost a
denial of the duality of theory and practice from which he

31
B.30 in B.1157, p. 301.
32
"The book of an Hegelian idealist, Giovanni Gentile, La
filosofia di Marx, Pisa, 1899, deserves attention. The author
points out some important aspects of Marx's materialistic
dialectics which ordinarily escape the attention of the Kantians,
positivists, etc." (V. I. Lenin, The Teachings of Karl Marx, New-
York, International Publishers Inc., 1930, p. 45).
33 . -
JJ
Cf. B.30 in B.1157, pp. 281-286, especially the
quotation from Schelling.
 77

began.34 Eor, obviously, the "elaboration of concepts" is the

explicit realization of that immanent self-criticism of things
that constitutes the revolutionary activity. The owl of Minerva
flies forth only at dusk—but the death of the old day is also
the birth of the new, and it is well to remember that the evening
and the morning star are not two but one. Logically speaking
Gentile was bound ultimately to leave the study into which he
withdraws, away from the proletarian mob, at the beginning of
these essays, and go down to struggle with them in the piazza.
In a sense, therefore, Prof. Spirito is right in suggesting that
the Studies in the Philosophy of Marx provide the foundation for
the "humanism of labour" which Gentile opposes to the Renaissance
"humanism of culture" in his last work. Far more obvious,
however, is the echo of these studies in his notion of life as a
'continual revolution' which is one of the key ideas of his
Fascism. And most important of all, though it would probably be
a mistake to see in Marx the source of his notion of the universe
as a great schoolroom, v/e must bear in mind that this funda-
mental notion of all of his philosophy is here developed for

34jn his continual criticisms of the Crocian distinction

between theory and practice—which can be found throughout both
studies—it is apparent that he has already gone beyond the view
of Kant and Fichte that the practical moment is somehow more
fundamental than the theoretical, towards the position that the
theoretical moment is itself essentially practical. "Morality
is a presupposition and not a product of an historical theory"
and therefore Croce's complaint that historical materialism does
not in itself provide a sufficient basis for socialism "pre-
supposes a false point of departure and a false point of arrival
(in other words a road that does not exist)." (B.ll in B.1157,
p. 190 and fn.). This denial of the Crocian problem of how to
pass from theory to practice is one of the most important seeds
of Gentile's fully developed view.
the first time.35

3. Education and Culture.

There is little sign that the 'Marxian-Gentilian' theory
of society as a great educational dialectic influenced Gentile's
early writings on strictly educational topics. The truth seems
to be that influence flowed in the opposite direction; his
educational preoccupations moulded his interpretation of Marx,
not vice versa. Hence although the seeds of his later "humanism
of labour" may be found in The Philosophy of Marx it was a long
time before they began to germinate. We do not find, for
instance, in the essay on "The Scientific Concept of Pedagogy"
(1900)3° any evidence that his broader intuition of the cosmic
educational process influenced Gentile's pedagogical theory.
The dominant idea of his early writings—and indeed of his whole
educational theory—remains the traditional "humanism of
culture".
Even in 1900, he v/as moving tov/ards the identification of
pedagogy with philosophy.37 ^fae concept of education, says
Gentile, must be autonomous; it cannot be made dependent on
Ethics or any other science, as Herbart thought. But here again

35if it seems necessary to seek an external "source" for

this idea, v/hich is the very heart of his personal vision of the
world, it would be best to connect it with the tradition of the
Risorgimento and particularly with Mazzini's idea of the v/orld
as a great workshop. Cf. Duties of Man, London, J. M. Dent,
(Everyman's Library), 1907, passim.
36
B.59 in B.1056, pp. 1-47.
37
This identification is indeed specifically asserted
(ibid., p. 34).
 79

he distinguishes between form and content, theory and practice:

education is taken as the datum of the a priori normative science
of pedagogy, while the norms of v/hich that science treats are
imperatives immanent in the empirical reality of education, just
as the "laws" of the physical scientist are imperatives immanent
in the material v/orld, and would not be "laws" if they did not
express the inner, autonomous nature of that world.38
It has always been agreed that 'education' is the formation
of man;39 the central concept of the autonomous science of
pedagogy is therefore the concept of 'Man': it is the concept,
moreover, of the essentially human, autonomous element in man.
Hence the idea of 'physical education1 is an error and a contra-
diction in terms:4° for although "Man" is soul and body, it is
the soul that makes the body human. Nature is only a stage on
the road to spirit, in which it finds its truth. Hence Gentile
soon withdraws his common sense concession: "Man is not soul
and body; but since he is soul, he is soul alone."41
The Spirit cannot be formed from without: it forms itself.
Master and pupil must therefore be at one. Indeed the empirical

3
B.59 in B.1056, pp. 15-17. Here more than anywhere else,
the 'Aristotelian' notion of the individual, which Gentile later
regarded as a prime error of his early speculation (cf. B.296 in
B.898, p. 25), is apparent.
39
B.59 in B.1056, p. 23.
A conclusion that is completely overturned in the
Summary of Educational Theory. This example demonstrates, as
well as any example can, the difference betv/een an idealism that
presupposes nature and one that does not. In the later work the
conclusion that man is "soul alone" remains; but the interpre-
tation given to it is quite different.
41B.59 in B.1056, p. 30.
duality is quite accidental to the essential nature of education;
it is spiritual unity that matters—for all attempts to teach
would fail in the face of a pupil who lacked either the will or
the ability to interpret the sounds and signs presented to him.42
The abstract potentiality of spiritual unity is furnished by the
language system; and from hence springs the vital importance of
elementary literacy. A man who cannot read and write is not more
than half human. In virtue of his power of speech he is a
member of society, but his society is particular, limited,
empirical. Thus the alphabet as the key to the universal society
of humanity and historical civilization has for Gentile a sort of
sacramental significance: it is a second baptism, the "baptism
of reason"—the fulfilment of the promise of the former "baptism
of faith". Only through it does humanity enter into its own
past and thus come to understand its present.
Nothing in our environment is intelligible, and that
means that nothing is truly seen by us, apart from the
knowledge of what has preceded it or v/hat corresponds
to it elsewhere, apart from that knowledge which can
only be gained from books, which enable us to talk with
men long dead or living far away from us.43
With the acquiring of those basic instruments the develop-
ment of the implicit nature of the Spirit can begin. In 190 2 in
an essay on "The Unity of the Secondary School"44 Gentile offered
the following diagrammatic analysis of this a priori nature that
is to be developed:

42
B.158 in B.1056, pp. 53-54.
43j3,i54 i n B.1056, p . 189. Cf. t h e v/hole p a s s a g e from
p . 185 to p . 1 9 3 .
4 4 B . 7 0 i n B.813, p p . 9-51.
 81

Spirit

language thought

I 1
knov/ledge reflection
(objective experience) (recognition of subjective
character of experience)
I | philosophy
History Science
(knowledge of (knowledge of
particular) universals)

I 1
synthesis analysis
(induction) (deduction)

The detailed argument behind this schema45 is unimportant since

with the full development of his idealism it was abandoned. We
must note, however, that Gentile already regards the distinction
of language and thought as purely ideal: language is the concrete
form and thought the abstract content.4° Hence it is "language"
that forms the foundation of schoolroom education. Gentile
proposes Italian, Latin (for the understanding of the Italian
tradition) and (as a necessary complement to Latin) Greek.
Turning then to the organization of objective experience he sug-
gests history and geography (particular knowledge); mathematics
and natural science (analysis and synthesis of universal con-
cepts). Finally as the crown of secondary education there is

4-^.70 in B.813, pp. 29ff. (the explanatory notes in

brackets have been inserted by the present writer).
^ We have here an anticipation of the distinction between
act and fact, pensiero pensante and pensiero pensato.
 82

philosophy.
This schema provided Gentile with an a priori basis for
his defence of the classical liceo, and its compulsory curriculum.
He admitted that the curriculum was overloaded: and at the same
time that there was a case for further additions (especially
modern languages). But he held that the main difficulties v/ere
not in the curriculum but rather in the attitude towards it. Too
many pupils were passing through the liceo whose only idea was
practical profit. For them technical schools should be pro-
vided. 4' On the other hand the school should not try to do the
v/ork of a university. It was not its task to instil learning but
to produce the uomo puro e_ disposto, ready to become scholar at
the university or citizen in the v/orld. Hence there should be
less concentration upon the imparting of factual information and
more on the arousing of interest and curiosity. Studies should
be intensive rather than general.
About the classical nature of the curriculum he v/ould
suffer no compromise. Indeed, even if, as the present writer
does, one agrees with Gentile about the vital importance of the
classical tradition in European civilization it is impossible
not to feel that he is unduly dogmatic about it. We must surely
beware of using a priori arguments to justify the maintenance of
the status quo, if development is the most fundamental a priori
characteristic of reality. To deny all possibility of a "modern
classicism", as Gentile does,4° on the grounds that the*roots of

47.b.i43 in B.813, pp. 103-107.

48
B.217 (1909) in B.813, p. 140.
 83

the Italian tradition are in Greece and Rome, is to betray this

fundamental principle. For, after all, when a tree grows its
roots spread ever more widely. Furthermore, some of his
arguments—even from his own strictly philosophical point of
view—are decidedly weak. For instance, although it is true that
a knowledge of Greek literature is essential for a full appre-
ciation of Latin literature, it is not essential (as Latin
literature is) for the sympathetic comprehension .of the Renais-
sance or of Dante. Hence Gentile's claim that those who are
willing to sacrifice Greek are less deserving of respect than
the outright opponents of the classics is simply cultural
bigotry."

To those who pleaded that the school should be a prepar-

ation for life, and that, in his plan for education, not enough
stress was laid on the practical and moral aspects of education,
Gentile retorted that the uomo puro e_ disposto — the man v/ho is
aware of the various spiritual capacities he possesses and the
nature of the problems upon which these capacities may be
exercised—is prepared for life in the only way possible. The
alternative would be to try to build the school curriculum on a
little encyclopaedia of 'what the good citizen should know'.
But in fact it is impossible to delimit the "culture that is
characteristic of the best citizens."5° Men are irreducibly
individual. Only the universal human spirit can be defined,
"for it is undeniable that there is a human nature, that is, to

49B.217 in B . 8 1 3 , p. 137.
50
B.143 in B.813, p. 80.
1
 84

be exact, a determinate organic system of spiritual attributes or

activities . . . ."51 This definition will certainly be
150
theoretical—even abstract. But the practical reality is blind
nature—the presupposition of the spirit: this must be disci-
plined indirectly through the intellect—of which the will is
only a facet. Moral education cannot consist in precepts. That
would indeed be unduly 'theoretical'—for "our actions follow
from what we are, not from v/hat we think. "53 jt must be done
indirectly by example and by arousing and directing interest. We
can only point out the things that are of value—and this office
is important for as the old scholastics put it, nulla ignoti
cupido. The pursuit of truth is a moral discipline which
produces the intellectual clarity that is the spiritual aspect of
strength of character: if it is true that instruction is only
part of education in one sense, it is equally true in another
that education (moral education that is) is only part of
instruction.^4
This doctrine provides an interesting contrast with the
view advanced in the Philosophy of Marx that all theories rest
on a practical moral attitude; but it is not, or at least not

51
B.143 in B.813, p. 83.
52
B.70 in B.813, p. 30.
53
B.121 in B.1056, p. 231.
54B.70 in B.813, pp. 30-32. The opposition of "education"
and "instruction" comes from Mazzini (cf. Duties Tof Man, p. 84).
It should not be forgotten that Gentile advocated~ Eh.e teaching of
dogmatic religion in the elementary school and insisted that the
secondary school be dominated by a definite philosophy (see
below, Section 5, pp. 99±"f.).
theoretically, inconsistent with it. For in both cases Gentile' s1-
argument is fundamentally that all spiritual activity is essen-
tially moral: and the emphasis here on the morality immanent in
pure thought considered as the search for truth, is as vital to
his fully developed theory as the emphasis on the practical,
developing character of pure thought in his studies of Marxism.
For it is this that distinguishes his theory from the social
pragmatism or sheer historical relativism into which his doctrine
might otherwise have degenerated. At the same time, we cannot
fail to recognize that the practical consequence of the doctrine
here set forth is an extremely conservative intellectualism which
is hardly reconcilable with his speculative theory that the whole
world process is an educational dialectic. These two almost
opposite applications of a single principle provide an
interesting object lesson in the dangers and ambiguities to
which a doctrine of the unity of theory and practice is liable.

4. Liberty and Authority in School and State.

As we have seen, Gentile held that the curriculum of the
secondary schools should be determined in accordance with the
a priori logic of human nature. It followed that the same
curriculum should be enforced for all pupils—v/ith very little
variation or freedom of choice. At the same time—and despite
the practical inconsistency of this belief v/ith the acceptance
of a transcendent a priori—he v/as absolutely convinced of the
freedom of the human spirit, and the vital need that the sponta-
neity of life should be reflected in the schoolroom. This put
him in somewhat of a quandary when he had to deal with the
advocates of 'freedom in the school'. When the choice really
 86

lies between uniformity and liberty, he admits unhesitatingly

that we must choose the latter.55 But he feels that, in general,
the option is a false one. We cannot mean by 'liberty' the
arbitrary will of the individual; for, logically speaking, the
individual, qua individual, is incapable of liberty—nature as
'given' has none.5° in order to educate at all we are bound to
infringe liberty in this sense:
Tom exists. But v/hat does it mean to say that 'Tom
exists'? V/hat is 'Tom'? You may go to infinite pains
to guarantee the sacrosanct individuality of this 'Tom'
of yours; but yet Tom must be something even for you. -
If he v/ere the ' shadow of a dream' , the problem of his
education would never arise. He has to be something
real, and, what is more, spiritually real. And this,
v/hatever you may say, is the presupposition of your
solicitude and concern for his ineffable individuality.5'
It is the spiritual liberty that 'ought to be' that is the
object of education. A 'natural' tendency or capacity must be
judged worthy of this ideal before it is allowed. Certainly the
vocation to thieving, for example, is not sacred. Furthermore,
we cannot be content v/ith simply disciplining the tendencies that
naturally exist. We must create those that should be there.58
Hence the liberty of the pupil really belongs to the teacher, v/ho
represents knowledge against error (which cannot of itself recog-
nize itself), and the teacher must not shirk his responsibility.
Gentile reconciles this grant of absolute moral authority with
his cardinal principle that the spirit is always morally

55B.70 in B.813, p. 25.

56
B.115 (1904) in B.813, p. 59.
57B.216 (1909) in B.1056, p. 346 (my italics).
58
B.115 in B.813, pp. 59-60; cf. B.59 in B.1056, pp. 6-8.
autonomous, by arguing that the freedom of the pupil is not can-
celled thereby, but preserved, since he can only learn to under-
stand himself through the subjection of his v/ill to the law.
In this paradox we are face to face with one of the worst
dangers of Gentile's theory of rational freedom. Since, wherever
the spirit is present, liberty and autonomy cannot be absent, it
seems that they can be disregarded for practical purposes. The
fact that whatever the pupil absorbs, he will ipso facto absorb
voluntarily and freely, is a sufficient insurance of his freedom.
He has no rights: all 'rights' belong only to the truth—in the
person of the teacher.
This is far from being v/hat most of us mean by liberty;
but we had better not reject it out of hand. For Gentile is
offering a solution to a problem v/hich is all too often ignored.
No one would hold that the schoolboy has a right to do what he
likes, or that the thief has a right to steal. Somehow liberty
must exist v/ithin the law. Hence arises the problem of the
relation of liberty to the law. How is this limiting force to
be determined? It is easy to answer that everyone has a right
to do whatever does not interfere with the equal right of every-
one else to do likewise. But it is hard to see how this formal
ideal can be given concrete application in any particular sit-
uation: it is even doubtful v/hether, in this sense, anyone has
a right to do anything except perhaps breathe and think.
Moreover, even if this negative freedom could be deter-
mined, it would be a very poor sort of thing. To be absolute
tyrant of a little world cut off and isolated, is no fate for an
essentially social being who is capable of a moral existence.
Under such circumstances the real life of the individual, the life
that mattered not merely to others but to himself, would not be
that which he enjoyed in his subjective kingdom, but the life of
sacrifice and suffering beyond the limit, in the greater realm
where absolute rights gave way to responsibility and respect for
law. He would be impelled voluntarily to surrender his 'freedom',
in order to devote himself to some cause which involved cooper-
ation with others.
In point of fact, v/hen we talk of 'freedom' we really mean
the right to live according to our own conscience, and to make
that conscience count for something in the world; and everyone
will agree that a conscience which is to count for something in
the world cannot be completely unrelated to the historical sit-
uation that actually exists there—people who have such 'irrele-
vant1- consciences are regarded as mentally ill. In the normal
course of events the conscience of the human individual acquires
historical relevance to his world because it is formed in that
world. Society, then (in the person of the schoolmaster), surely
possesses the right to present itself to the conscience which is
in process of formation (the pupil) in whatever aspect appears
best; the pupil will still form his conscience freely, but in
some determinate relation to what is thus presented to him. This
is the meaning of the paradox referred to above, which therefore
expresses an important truth. The autonomy of the pupil is not
necessarily denied by the claim of the teacher to exercise his
freedom for him: the danger is that it may be. Even such a
denial could not succeed in actually destroying this autonomy
altogether; but at the very least it would result in a complete
 89

breakdown of communication—the self-education of the pupil would

continue, but in opposition to the 'law' in virtue of which the
teacher claimed to exercise his freedom for him. Hence it is
vitally necessary to consider within what limits, and by what
methods, the teacher may legitimately exercise the pupil's free-
dom; for he always needs the assent of the pupil.
Theoretically, Gentile never forgot this; that is why we
can in justice claim that his philosophy is a philosophy of
freedom. He often emphasized that the business of the school
was to produce consciences which were alive and critical. Men
have to be aroused out of a state of social somnambulism, and
brought to recognize their responsibilities as makers, not
simply products, of society.59 This was especially true in the
case of those who were being educated to join the ranks of the
professions: for they would provide the leadership and govern-
ment of the country.

p
^Cf. ±$.143 in B.813, pp. 91-94. In the wider society
beyond the schoolroom, the State and its Government take the
place of truth and the teacher. Hence the problem of pupil-
teacher relations has important political repercussions. In his
lecture "For the State Elementary School" Gentile made clear that
the "ethical character" of the State does not set it above the
criticism of individuals. But it is above mere grousing;
criticism must be active: then, as the political activity of
responsible citizens, it coincides with the living process of
the State: "Certainly, to be dissatisfied with the Government
is right and good: it is a sign that v/e desire a better Govern-
ment, more just, more intelligent, more active; in other words,
that we aspire to greater justice and more intelligence. But a
free people feels this aspiration not as a need that can only be
satisfied by others when it may chance to please them; but rather
as a duty that they, the people, have to fulfil. Do we desire
greater honesty and justice? Well then let us form an alliance
with the honest, let us gather round the banner of justice, let
us do our duty in our role as citizens." (B.154 in B.1056,
pp. 195=T96.
 90

But in practice the truth as he saw it imposed itself on

his will so completely that he was not unwilling to keep everyone
else in leading strings until they could see it too. This
tendency led him later to defend some very illiberal positions
in his political polemics: and it brought him at last to his
death at the hands of an assassin.
In this early period the tendency even had a certain
theoretical basis; for if human nature is bound to exhibit a
certain definite form in history, then the ultimate authority on
all questions is the philosopher who understands the a priori
logic of the spirit. Hence the desires of the parents received
no more attention from Gentile than those of their children.
The State—the ideal State, Reason—must decide what is to be
taught, not any individual interest.
His attitude towards the theory of democratic government
in general was similarly affected by this intellectual
arrogance. The cautious bourgeois intellectuals who led the
Risorgimento after I848 had little sympathy with those v/ho inter-
preted the principle of popular sovereignty to mean popular
democracy with universal suffrage. Even Mazzini felt that the
people were too easily swayed to be trusted very far alone, and
envisaged the gradual extension of democratic practice within the

60
B.70 in B.813, p. 44.
•^When a v/ould-be reformer of the secondary school proposed
that different curricula should be compulsory according to the
career which the pupil desired to enter, and that the content of
the various curricula should be settled by the professional
bodies most nearly concerned, Gentile expressed scornful surprise,
that a philosopher should suggest the solution of a rational
problem by majority vote (B.161 in B.813, p. 124).
limits of a National Contract "made with the unanimous and free
consent of our greatest in wisdom and virtue".^2 Gentile thought
and wrote in this tradition. Thus he says in one place:
. . . it is obvious that a free State in the modern age,
can only be a State governed by representatives of the
people; and that these representatives can be represen-
tatives only if they are worthy of the people and the
people of them. They are in truth the most genuine and
authentic instruments of the political will of the
people: we may even say that they are the people
organized politically and possessed of whatever value
it has been able to attain.°3
But this affirmation does not make him a supporter of universal
suffrage. The distinguishing mark of a man in his theory, from
these early years onwards, was reason—reason historically
determined, i.e. the possession of a social conscience and the
ability to consider the interests of society as a whole. The
shape of a man was not therefore, a sufficient warrant for a
share in the government.
The demagogue who harangues a mob may exalt universal
suffrage in the name of liberty. Yet the philosopher
may fairly suspect that it is the negation of liberty,
a failure to understand the dignity of the spirit and
its pre-eminence over nature.
. . . Vogliam die ogni figlio d'Adamo
Conti per uomo.
\_. . . We mean that every son of Adam
Shall count as a man.]
Well and good; but every son of Adam must count as a
man, if he is man; for many of his sons are not true
men, since they show no sign of the breath of God, and
have not attained to the actual exercise of that 'reason'
(concrete, historical reason) that is recognized as the
specific difference of humanity. They have the appear-
ance of men, but not the substance, the spirit, the true
humanity; and hence they cannot count as men. And they

D
^"To the Italians" in Duties of Man, p. 235.
6
3B.154 in B.1056, p. 195.
 92

cannot, for example, make laws; for the laws are a

product of the human spirit.^4
The phrase "concrete, historical reason" in the above
quotation is a synonym for what Gentile means by "lo Stato"—the
State. The doctrine that the State is immanent in the conscious-
ness of the individual citizen can be found in his earliest
writings and is the foundation stone of his whole social theory.
It is therefore of the utmost importance to understand it aright.
The most explicit discussion of the relation of this philosoph-
ical concept of the State to the empirical State that I have
found in Gentile's early writings—or for that matter in his
later systematic works—occurs in the dedicatory letter to the
volume School and Philosophy (1908). 5 Writing there to his
friend Lombardo-Radice he remarks:
We want liberty—of this we have given proof in our
writings, proof that even seems excessive at times;—
but liberty that raises itself to the State, and is not
simply our own individual liberty, but the liberty of
the law, that is in and for all men. Certainly the
State is not quite what philosophy would have it: and
we are always proclaiming the fact in no uncertain
voice; but v/e remember the teaching of Kant, that the
true politics is not that which looks only at the State
as it is, but also at the State as it ought to be:
and, to the best of our ability, we fight for this
ideal State that is our heart's desire, the Lawgiver
for all the practical activity in which the ideals of
human culture are poured forth under the watchful eye
of philosophy.
We have seen already that in Gentile's interpretation the
Hegelian State is not alien to but rather immanent in the will
of the individual. Since this immanent State is clearly

4B.70 in B.813, pp. 25-26 (Gentile's italics).

5
B.l83. Preface reprinted in B.813 (1925), pp. 5-8.
 93

identified above with the Kantian moral will, it is fair to say

that when he talks about the "State" Gentile usually means what
we call "conscience".
We are the State, all of us who feel ourselves
organized and unified by a fundamental law, as a people
possessed of independence: and all the defects of the
State cannot but be our own defects. The individual
v/ho feels that this social organization is alien to
him, and looks on all evil as alien likewise, and all
good, as accumulated in his own person, one who rebels
against the State, is plainly an egoist who does not
recognize that the good is the good of all men . . .
. . . The State has a raison d'etre in so far as there
is something to be guaranteed; and in reality it
guarantees all the economic activities of a people,
by lav/ against enemies within, and by defence against
enemies abroad; and thus it guarantees also all the
moral personalities (chief among them, the family) to
which human economic activity gives rise . . .67
As soon as this point is grasped many of the popular accusations
against his political theory can be recognized as misunderstand-
ings; and his indignant rebuttal of the charge of 'Statolatry'
becomes intelligible.
The identification of State and conscience implies, of
course, a completely social and historical view of morality. It
is a denial of abstract rationalism in ethics. In Gentile's
view, the ethical theory of Kant, in which the universal,
rational nature of the moral consciousness was for the first time
revealed, provides a living proof that it is impossible to give
to this consciousness any determinate form by purely rational

DO
The empirical meaning of the word 'State1 betrays him
into dangerous ambiguities, however, about-v/hich-even a careful
and sympathetic reader cannot hope to become completely clear,
since all too often the apparent cogency of the argument rests
on the ambiguity of the term.
67
B.154 in B.1056, pp. 196, 198.
 94

means. Determination, i.e. concrete content, it receives only

CO

in experience. There is no absolutely right and final code of

morals: strictly speaking, in Gentile's terms, morality is not
to be found in a code at all. The moral act is always unique;
it springs out of a completely determinate historical situation
that cannot recur. Hence there is very little that can be said
about it in the abstract, and it should surprise no one to hear
that the "Ethics" which Gentile promised the world in 1913 never
materialized. fa° On the other hand, his whole view of life v/as
ethical; there was no activity that did not possess moral signi-
ficance for him: hence no one can hope to understand his work
who does not appreciate the immanent ethical character, not
merely of his political and educational writings, but even of
more 'theoretical' treatises such as the Logic or the Theory of
Mind as Pure Act. All his life he fought against the general
tendency to abstract moral ideals from the actual situations of
life, and to speak of 'what is' and 'what ought to be' as quite
separate and distinct. The 'is' and the 'ought' were for him
only two aspects of a single dialectical process—the self-
criticism of reality as Labriola and the Marxists called it.
The separation of the real from the ideal was a 'sophism' and
70
the 'realism' that was based on it was self-contradictory;'

Cf. for instance his interesting remarks concerning

Kantian ethics in his short review of Josiah Royce's Philosophy
of Loyalty (B.270) which he, rather unjustly, regarded as no more
than a restatement of Kant in a new vocabulary.
69
B.296 in B.898, p. 32.
70
Cf. e s p e c i a l l y B.216 (1909) i n B.1056, p p . 341-348.
 9

certainly action, if it is to be successful, must be 'realistic'—

but the 'real' to which attention should be directed was the
dialectic process as a whole. The 'facts' to which sophistic
realism appealed were only facts within the framework of a
the ory.
The legitimate claims of realism were recognized by
Gentile, in his identification of the moral conscience in its
concreteness, with the State. This identification means, first
of all, that we must seek for the definition of our present moral
duty in our social environment as it actually exists now; for,
unless we are prepared to build on and within the social frame-
work that exists, our volition will remain a merely subjective
aspiration, lacking universality because it has not the power to
objectify itself, to make itself real in the world.
Objectivity, sheer pov/er or effectiveness, is vitally
important in Gentile's theory because it is a sort of guarantee
of the universal value of the will; when we succeed in producing
some definite change in a given state of affairs, our action
ceases to be something merely personal, and assumes a value or
significance in the eyes of all the other persons involved in
that situation. His desire to guarantee this concrete univer-
sality sometimes leads Gentile to confuse the 'transcendental'
State (the ideal of a morally responsible person) with the
empirical State, because this latter is the greatest focus of
social power. For instance, if we are good citizens in Gentile's
sense we do not need to be told that the State is the only real
soLirce of authority. But this fact does not, as Gentile appears
to think, enable us to solve automatically the empirical problem
 96

of whether the national or the local authority should be respon-

sible for the organization of public education.'! The question
must be resolved by reference to the good of society as a whole:
but there is no a priori way of deciding whether the paramount
authority of society will best serve the public interest by
direct action, rather than by delegation of responsibility. In
Gentile's opinion education is the most vital .function of the
State: he even says it would be the primary function of a supra-
national organization if one were established.' Furthermore,
it is arguable that the national authority in a young nation
such as Italy ought to supervise with considerable care the whole
structure of elementary education, as the best means for creating
a truly national consciousness. No one can deny that local
control of education helped to strengthen the campanilismo of
the average Italian, which was the primary enemy of this national
consciousness. But such considerations as this are historical,
not a priori. They are of the same sort as the counter argument,
which Gentile dismisses in a very high-handed fashion, that the
existing national authority had already shown itself corrupt and
inefficient in dealing with the railways, and should not be
trusted with the schools. As he says, the choice never lies
between 'theory' and 'practice' but always between two theoriesj;
but nevertheless it is a choice that must be made with one eye
on practical advantages and difficulties. It is by no means
enough to say "True ideas find for themselves the way to reality,

' X B.154 in B.1056, especially pp. 176, 194.

72
ibid., p. 198.
 97

as we might say, since where a road does not already exist, they
create one."73 ^na no matter how carefully the philosopher
explains that his a priori method does not involve a dictatorship
of the mind over reality, the practical politician will rightly
continue to regard him as a weaver of Utopias as long as he
adopts this tone.
The worst danger involved in this tendency to confuse the
transcendental State with the actual structure of governmental
authority, is that it leads with inevitable logic to a kind of
intellectual despotism. For only a fully rational animal, a man
possessed of a social conscience, is fit to be a citizen in the
full sense: and only the citizen counts in society. Hence
arises the problem of how we are to decide which featherless
bipeds possess the requisite social consciousness. In Gentile's
theory it almost seems that the philosopher (i.e. Gentile himself)
is the ultimate judge. It follows that every tendency which the
philosopher recognizes as 'rational' should be realized in
institutions and voluntarily accepted by all others as part of
their moral and civil life. Of course, it would be ridiculous to
suggest that Gentile ever actually held any such extreme view as
this. But the tendency to favour 'government by the expert'

seems an ineradicable element of the Hegelian political tradition;

Gentile never freed himself from it; and it goes far towards
explaining his later career in politics.
The roots of Fascist theory can be clearly seen in his
early writings, even in his attitude towards theoretical

T
3B.154 in B.1056, p. 183.
controversy. He inherited the Hegelian habit of regarding his
own theories as 'Philosophy' with a capital letter: and because
of the fundamentally ''ethical' character of his whole view of
reality, the inconsistencies of other philosophers appeared to
him not as errors merely, but as sins. As he proudly proclaimed
in 1907:
My friend Croce and I, travelling by different paths,
arrive at this unshakable joint conviction: that
theoretical errors have a moral root; and that it is
not legitimate to regard as a man of good will one who
does nothing to introduce a little order and intelli-
gibility into his own thought.74
It is true that this was a polemical response to the accusation
of De Sarlo, that he and Croce exercised "a kind of terrorism
in the field of philosophy"; and that he goes on to characterize
his own attitude as one of "free, insistent and sincere
criticism". But the dangers of such a strictly 'moral' approach
even to speculative problems need no emphasis.
Gentile had, indeed, such a horror of anything resembling
scepticism, that he regarded even the self-doubt of people whom
he believed to be mistaken about matters of practical policy
with disgust. The 'modesty' of one supporter of 'individual
freedom' in the school, who put forward his own proposals as
mere suggestions, appeared to Gentile to be either scepticism or
hypocrisy. "For my part," he wrote, "I confess that 1 am con-
vinced of just one thing: and that is that, though perhaps
modesty is a great virtue of the character, it is by no means a
great virtue of the intellect."75 But a man who is not thus

7
4B.176 in B.618, p. 238.
7
5B.115 in B.813, p. 58.
•modest' is going to find it hard to accept anything less than
absolute authority. Small wonder then that he was tempted to
become a 'philosopher king'—the schoolmaster of a whole society
and guardian of its 'true' freedom.

5. Religion in School and State.

If the State is the highest concrete expression of the
moral conscience of mankind it cannot be indifferent to religion.
On the one hand this doctrine implies that the State must be
autonomous and not seek its authority from Religion or any other
external source. But on the other, Religion, properly under-
stood, is immanent in the State: the sense of universality and
objectivity which should pervade the life of the good citizen is
inseparable from a thoroughly religious attitude. Hence the
opposition of Church and State which was a heritage of the
Risorgimento presented Gentile with another serious problem; the
famous policy of Cavour, "A free Church in a free State," needed
careful interpretation. It would be suicidal, in Gentile's view,
for the political authority to ignore its ov/n spiritual mission.
It seemed that the nation was not alive to this danger.
The "lay State" was responsible for the moral formation of the
vast mass of its subjects through the national educational
system: but it was tending more and more to shuffle out of this
responsibility and leave the task entirely to the Church which
it did not officially recognize. The Lex Casati of 1859 which
established the framework of the Italian educational system
right dov/n to 1923 had made Religion a compulsory subject of
instruction in the schools. But during the first forty years of
 100)

Italy's existence as a State this provision was gradually

weakened, until at last it was on the verge of disappearing alto-
gether. As early as 1870, religious instruction was made optional
by an administrative decision—though this charge was not
definitely legalized until 1888. In 1904 the Lex Orlando finally
omitted religion altogether from the list of subjects to be

taught in the elementary schools. This provoked protests and a

Commission was set up to consider the matter.7° While it was
still at work, the Federation of secondary school teachers
arranged to discuss the whole problem of the 'lay school1 at
their national congress in September 1907, and invited Gentile
to prepare a statement on the subject. His report provides a
valuable account of his views at this time on the place of
religion in society. Because it is primarily concerned with the
problem of religious instruction in State schools the broader
questions are only briefly dealt, with. But the principles enun-
ciated in it continued to dominate his thought on the subject to
the end of his career.

The 'lay school', he declares at the outset, must not

simply be defined negatively. To say that it is non-confessional
or neutral in religious matters is not enough—there would be no
progress involved in the simple creation of a tabula rasa. But
when v/e seek to determine the concept positively we find "at the
root of the concept of the 'lay spirit' a certain element that
essentially belongs to the religious spirit."''

^Howard R. Marraro, The New Education in Italy, New York,

S. F. vanni, 1936, pp. 58-59.
77B.163 in B.1056, p. 97.
 101

Similarly the State can only distinguish itself from the

Church on condition that it recognizes its own religious charac-
ter; it can deny all external religious authority, but it cannot
then deny the religious character of its own authority. "Only
the State that is first of all religious can be a lay State."7
Whatever its representatives may say, the State remains an ethical
reality in its active existence; and only this absolute quality,
this element of divinity within it, gives it the right and the
power to deny all other authority. Because this ethical quality
is essential to the State, absolute autonomy has always belonged
to every real State, even the so-called 'confessional' State,
which in reality authorized its ov/n subjection. It is natural,
however, that this autonomy should express itself ever more
completely in the form of conscious liberty: and therefore the
authority which appears at first as external gradually becomes
internal. It is only, through this internalization that the true
character of Religion as an ideal moment of the dialectic of the
Spirit becomes apparent. Hence it is fair to say that the
religious duty, which the 'confessional' State recognizes, is
only properly fulfilled when the State becomes av/are of its ov/n
ethical autonomy and responsibility. Religion gives way then to
the full concreteness of Philosophy; yet it is not thereby
destroyed but rather fulfilled. It is no longer regarded as a
reality, but as an ideal, an eternal striving for the unattain-
able peace of absolute Truth.
From this speculative analysis of the nature of moral

78
B.163 in B.1056, p. 98.
 10

authority Gentile goes on to deduce the character of a really

'lay' school. It must be not less but more religious than the
confessional schools, in virtue of a careful distinction between
the arbitrary form and the essential content of religion. The
main faults of the conf ess.ional schools arise from the arbitrary
character of their conception of the Absolute. This arbitrari-
ness must at all costs be avoided in any school that aspires to
be 'lay'; but there can be no school at all without a conception
of the Absolute.
In the confessional schools a definite religion is taught;
and this gives them an exclusive character. The world is divided
sharply into the two kingdoms of light and darkness—a division
which is inconsistent with the ideal aim of education.
The school . . . is the teaching of truth and justice,
which is or ought to be one for all men. Of its
nature, the school makes men brothers, unites them in
the spirit, by knocking off the rough edges, freeing
them from individual prejudices, selfishness and one—
sidedness, and raising them to the pure air of science
and the universal good. The confessional school on
the other hand produces minds more dogmatic than
before. It knocks off the rough edges with v/hich the
child comes to school; but in their place it supplies
new ones, more difficult to remove because they are
more systematic: it takes away the faith native to
the spirit, that truth and goodness are one, and splits
the human race into two parts before the eyes of the
pupil, the elect on one side and the wicked on the other.
The first party are the privileged spirits, possessed
of truth and justice; the second are those condemned
to darkness, and divided in a thousand diverse sects
erring in different ways in their vain search after a
ray of light. Instead of brotherhood, division;
instead of collaboration in the progressive determin-
ation of what we ought to know, and what we ought to
do, intolerancel79

79
B.163 in B.1056, p. 106.
 10

Intolerance is not the worst fault of the confessional

fin
schools, however. The antipathy of confessional schools
towards scientific advance—in the broadest sense of the word—
is a greater evil than the bigotry they engender towards those
who are not of the faith. And, worst of all, they destroy
individual self-reliance and responsibility, by substituting a
transcendent unchallengeable authority for the authority of
reason in the individual conscience. This above all is the
limitation of confessionalism which a lay education must fight
and conquer: for it is the antithesis of real education.
Nevertheless, Gentile goes on, the fact that the con-
fessional school does have a determinate conception of life is
its great merit. It may have serious limitations and defects,
but it really is a school.
You may have an inadequate school, if you found it on
an inadequate concept of the Absolute, or an inadequate
idea of life; but, if you renounce the Absolute and
take no thought about any concept of it, not only will
you not have an adequate school—you will have no
school at all . . .°1
A school requires as its base the concept of something absolute;
at the centre of life there must be a definite faith, a concept
of the supreme end. This the existing lay schools do not supply;

O A
If intolerance were the only fault at issue, remarks
Gentile, one might almost criticize dogmatic philosophy as
harshly as dogmatic religion—though in point of fact there is
a vitally important difference between religious and philosoph-
ical dogmatism, in that a philosopher v/ill always admit the
appeal to reason, and hence the possibility of growth and change
even in his most cherished dogmatic beliefs (B.163 in B.1056,
pp. 108-109).
8l
ibid., p. 111.
 104

for intellectual instruction offers only a formal ideal.

Certainly the spirit of 'learning' is a serious one; the dilet-
tantism that was the canker of Italian intellectual life before

the Risorgimento is now destroyed. But pure erudition ends in

pedantic specialization and scepticism about the great moral
issues of life outside the schoolroom. The true end of education
is to understand life; and this requires a general conception of
the purpose of existence.
We need a faith therefore; and this faith is bound to be
philosophical, for science cannot answer the ultimate questions
that arise in experience, and a scientific neutrality or suspen-
sion of judgement is impossible—we must discuss the problems of
life and death. But we can avoid the dogmatism of a credo; we
can avoid intolerance and partisan bigotry; and we can encourage
the critical thinking that makes possible scientific progress.
The lay school should be a temple, but a temple of the free
advance of reason: reason should always be respected.
A faith that is to be a faith, must be determinate; it
must have limits. But a rational philosophical faith must
contain the seeds of growth beyond these limits. The problem of
how far the individual teacher's freedom of interpretation of the
material he has to teach should be limited is therefore a serious
one. His freedom must be as great as possible; but some
authority must set limits to its arbitrary exercise:
There are cases in which the knowledge and didactic
capacity of the teachers require, on the part of who-
ever has the power of direction and control, along with
the necessary authority and competence (which is a
matter for very careful consideration), an intervention
with advice, suggestions, corrections; so as to see to
 10-5

it . . . when necessary, that errors which can be

clearly recognized as such should not be committed.°'2

The public opinion of the whole teaching body v/ill provide an

adequate safeguard against the misuse of this limiting authority
to destroy academic freedom. Political control of the schools
would be a more terrible form of slavery than confessionalism. 3
There must be no limit to the right of free discussion.
"The school is made by the master""4 w h o forms the minds
of his pupils, and their 'liberty' is properly in his keeping; for
education is a work of love and requires a "complete surrender"
(dedizione completa). When parents send their children to public
schools, they entrust their moral v/elfare to the schoolmaster
appointed by the State: he has to create the conscience of the
pupil, a conscience worthy of respect, before he can respect it.
His school is a moral and intellectual preparation for life,
governed by an ideal of what life can be. The general attitude
to be adopted must be hammered out in detail by continuous dis-
cussion at all levels of the organization of teachers. But the
ideal to be inculcated is an immanent humanism quite distinct
from and even opposed to any dogmatic creed;

. . . the reason for life is within life itself, not

outside of it; the reason for everything that we think
lies at the heart of this reality that we perceive.
Nothing transcends our world, rationally conceived;

82
B.163 in B.1056, p. 124.
°3one cannot help wondering whether Gentile suffered any
qualms on this account when he reread this Report in 1931. (He
made one significant gesture by adding a footnote reaffirming
his belief that reason and the right to think must always be
respected, ibid., p. 123).
84
ibid., p. 127.
 and therefore nothing transcends our spirit. Mysteries,
incomprehensible fountains of human values, are the
negation of man's autonomy and hence of every human
value.85
In the light of this analysis, Gentile concludes, we
should not banish religious instruction from the schools. The
moral consciousness can only be sound and objective if it is
based on a vision of the whole of life. This systematic orien-
tation of the individual in the world is something provided only
by a religious doctrine or by a philosophy—and the school-child
cannot grasp the latter. Young children cannot attain to a
critical intellectual awareness of their place in the world as

a whole. Hence religion is a necessary stage in the development

of a philosophical attitude, which must grow out of its myths
and dogmas. ° Elementary education in Italy should therefore
be founded on the teaching of the Catholic doctrine, since no
other religious creed is seriously in question. With open and
critical rationalism a better education could be provided on this
basis than the strict confessional school offers. And from the
personnel of this new school no one can legitimately be
excluded who is honestly interested in the total progress of
culture. A modernist priest would even be preferable to a
narrow-minded anti-clerical.

Finally, even in the secondary school, which should be

philosophical and critical, there must be an overall unity of
outlook. The young mind must not be faced with violent con-
trasts of belief too soon, or scepticism, both moral and

8
5B.163 in B.1056, pp. 131-132.
86
Cf. G e n t i l e ' s reply to c r i t i c s , B.165 in B.1056, p . 150.
 107

intellectual, will almost certainly result. " Headmasters must

therefore set the 'tone' for the whole school. "The ideal of the

school is that it should have a single master." 88 Only at the

university level, when the student has acquired a definite
consciousness of his autonomy, and can make up his own mind,
should the free play of opposed points of view be suffered.89
It is not to be wondered at that Gentile was accused of
bad logic by some speakers at the Congress. They found a contra-
diction between his critique of the confessional school and his
whole argument in favour of an elementary education founded on
dogmatic religion. And their bewilderment was reasonable
enough, since according to Gentile's report, the Italian school
could not be a lay school in any real sense—but only in the
transcendental sense in which all schools that are schools at
all, are ipso facto 'lay' schools. Only the University in
Gentile's proposal will meet the requirements of a lay school as
it was defined, say, by Salvemini—the most moderate of his
opponents. In all honesty, we must count Gentile as an opponent
of the lay school: though he was by no means a simple supporter
of the confessional school.
It is more surprising to find that Miss Lion, in her book
on The Idealistic Conception of Religion,90 agrees that Gentile's

7
B.165 in B.1056, p. 153. Compare Plato's warning of
the dangers attending too rapid an approach to Dialectic.
88
ibid., p. 152.
8
9 j b i d . , p . 153. Cf. B.159 i n B.813, p . 201 and p a s s i m .
9°0xford U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s , 1932.
views on religion and life in this paper are hopelessly confused—
for no one could describe her as a hostile critic. She is more
interested however in the contradiction that she finds in
Gentile's attitude to the confessional school: she claims that
the impracticable nature of his proposals reflects a confusion
in his ideas about religion at this time.
. . . Gentile tried in vain to reconcile what he had
said of the excellence of the lay school with his
emphatic proclamation of the superiority of the con-
fessional school. His attempt made the contrast worse.
For to be consistent he voted against the motion that
the whole elementary school system should pass into
the hands of lay men or women; and repeatedly demanded
the introduction of definite religious teaching into
these elementary schools. On the other hand, secondary
schools were to have philosophical religious teaching;
the teachers imparting philosophical faith. He could
not have done much worse in the way of conciliation . . .
. . . He forsaw all the difficulties and did his best
to meet them. In spite of his efforts he could only
make things v/orse by suggesting that each secondary
school should try to select its teachers in a way that
would ensure to single schools, at least approximately,
unity in philosophical faith, so as to prevent the
diversity of beliefs amongst the staff from breeding
scepticism among students. To anyone used to the
Gentile of later years and familiar with his speculative
works, his attitude here seems almost comic . . .91
It is no part of our concern here to decide whether the
speculative view of religion contained in "Scuola Laica" is
correct or even consistent. Miss Lion may perhaps be right in
declaring that section 4 is "an unforijunate medley in which
Vico's and Hegel's views are uncritically mixed."92 But her
contention that Gentile's practical programme, merely reflects
the confusion in his ideas about religion "at the time" involves

91
op_. cit., pp. 179-180.
92
ibid., p. 174.
 •109

a suppressio veri; and the implication, which runs through the

whole of her discussion, that Gentile's views, both speculative
and practical, underwent serious modification in later years is
a suggestio falsi.93 jf G-entile was confused in 1907 he always
remained confused. In 1922 and 1923 whenever he discussed the
reform of Italian education that went by his name he referred
back to his stand at this Congress."4 j n that Reform he made
religious instruction the centre of elementary education, and a
reformed philosophy curriculum the centre of secondary education:
he increased the authority of secondary school headmasters and

93lt may seem both presumptuous and dangerous for one who
knows Gentile only through his writings to challenge in this way,
one who was for years a personal pupil of his. But the consis-
tency of every statement that Gentile ever published on the
subject is so striking, and direct reference back to his stand
in 1907 is so frequent, that I simply cannot comprehend how
Miss- Lion could ever have written the last sentence quoted above.
If I may be allowed a brief comment on the speculative
problem, it seems to me that Miss Lion has confused the trans-
cendental meaning of religion with the historical reality of the
Church. All historical institutions have artistic, religious,
and philosophical aspects; but since philosophy is the full self-
consciousness of history, the philosophical aspect is the one
that is important to an historian. Gentile makes it clear in
section 4, that he is approaching religion from this point of
viev/. He is seeking to determine, sufficiently clearly for his
immediate purpose, what religion is in its concrete historical
form; religion in this sense is something quite different from
what it is for the believer, or as an ideal tendency in a
speculative theory. The philosophy which gives historical
importance to a determinate religion is bound to be immature
and mythical in character or it v/ould not be religious. The
different senses in which the word 'religion' may be taken are
certainly confusing; but Gentile has not confused them—though
the distinction he draws is expressed in orthodox Hegelian terms
which he would not have used five years later (cf. below, p. 111).
As for Miss Lion's contention that "the philosophical
faith which he propounded for the secondary schools could not
have done the same service as the creed it was meant to supplant"
(p. 180), I can only say that, true or false, it is a flat
contradiction of the basic tenets of Actual Idealism.
94B.776 or B.1057 passim.
 no;
did everything he could to impress on them their overall respon-
sibility for what was taught under their direction. He justified
all this by speculative reasoning which does not differ in any
important respect from his argument in this Report. Furthermore,
in 1929, at the time of the Concordat, he still regarded the
introduction of dogmatic religion into the secondary school as
a mistake. 5 All this can hardly have been unknown to Miss
Lion—whose book was published in 1932. Yet she talks as if
Gentile's view of the relation of religion and philosophy in
1907 was a .mere aberration.
In point of fact far from being a mere aberration "Scuola
Laica" is integrally related to Gentile's overall view of the
relation between Church and State, which he discusses in his
epilogue to the Congress. With the political heritage of 1870
in mind, he remarks that his proposal is an ideal to aim at
rather than a practical proposal, "It means that if the relations
of State and Church in Italy permitted it (or v/henever they do
permit it), the moral instruction in the elementary school would
be (or must be) definitely religious."96 Until then the spirit
of elementary education should at least be concordant with the
religious instruction given at home or in church. Only a proper
relation of State and Church can bring the ideal of a fully
religious elementary education to fruition.
It seemed to Gentile that Church and State were bound to

It would be difficult to supply chapter and verse for

an explicit statement to this effect—Fascist Party discipline
would have been a curb to u-entile's tongue. But his attitude
was no secret. 1
96B.1056, p. 162 (Gentile's italics).
 Ill

be suspicious of one another, because both claimed moral authority

over the minds and hearts of their individual members. From
the point of view of the State there were only two possible
courses: either the claim of the Church to absolute authority
was valid and should be admitted, or it was not and should be
denied.97 But it is not enough simply to deny the claim; the
authority must be replaced. The true source of authority must be
pointed out; and this can only be the State itself, in its
ethical character. Certainly religion transcends the State in a
sense; religious freedom (as Cavour perceived98) ±s 0f the
essence of the modern State. But we must be careful not to
confuse religion as an ideal moment of the Spirit, with religion
as a social institution, the Church; the Church is an organ of
the State "v/hich in a practical sense always creates it, inas-
much as it recognizes it."
Philosophy is superior to the State, and contains it;
but the professor of philosophy is an organ of the State;
similarly religion contains the State, but the State
contains the Church. The theory of the separation of
State and Church wilfully ignores this difference
between religion as a moment of the spirit and hence a
private matter, and the Church as a social institution,
and hence a matter of public concern of which the State
must take cognizance.99

97B.252 (1911) in B.898, p. 177.

98
ibid., pp. 174-175.
9 9 B . 1056, p. 163; cf. note 86 above, p. 10.6. This passage
is another example of the new wine in the old bottles. For
Gentile aspires to a philosophy of complete immanence and insists
that the citizen is the whole man; yet at the same time he
accepts the Hegelian viev/ that Religion as a moment of the spirit
transcends the State and is therefore a private matter. In 1922
he argued on the contrary that Religion is a private matter
precisely because the State transcends it.
 112

The State is the moral limit of the citizen's individ-

uality; and the citizen is the whole man. Hence the State can
exercise a negative control over his v/hole life: no more than
Jove can it undo what is done, but it can deny public effect,
i.e. universal significance, to a deed of which it disapproves.
Thus it may censor works of art and remove professors from their
official positions.
The Church on the other hand is not a form of the State
itself but only of the people, who are, as it were, the raw
material of the State. Hence if the State allows the Church an
important role in education no surrender of authority is involved.
It is simply the case that religion has its own proper place in
cultural development. The State itself can profess no religion.
What religion should be taught is an empirical matter to be set-
tled so as to satisfy as many people as possible; but that there
should be religious instruction is an a priori necessity, and
hence the State cannot heed the protests of private individuals
who oppose religion altogether.
In this case also the cultural and moral purpose proper
to the State should prevail as against the pseudo-
purposes of private persons, in order that the true
purposes of these very private persons (although they
may be ignorant of them or wilfully ignore them) may
at last prevail.100

100B.1056, p. 166. I do not think that Gentile means by

this typical piece of a priori dictatorship that a particular
creed is to be taught to private individuals or their children
against their will. For this would be inconsistent with the
Hegelian point of view that he adopts here—according to which
religious belief is a private affair. Yet it is hard to see how
the purpose of the State can prevail in any other way. When he
was in a position to put his ideas into practice in 1922, he no
longer admitted that religious belief was a private affair—
since, in his fully developed idealism, the distinction between
 113

Freedom must be built on faith. Hence religion is eternal

because it corresponds to a "childhood of the spirit" that must
be eternally renewed. Democracy is the reign of immanent reason
in politics. But like Antaeus it can live only while it main-
tains contact with the earth from which it springs.

•public' and 'private' was completely abolished. But he still

held that the-State should permit freedom—since it would fall
short of its strictly philosophical ideal if it insisted upon a
determinate religion. His view in 1922 was that "every faith is
sacred; but a faith there must be" (B.668 in B.1057, p. 17); and
this seems to be the essence of his arguemtn here. The Royal
Decree of October 1, 1923, No. 2185, put this policy into effect
by enacting that "Children whose parents wish to provide
religious education personally are exempted from religious
instruction in the schools." (Marraro, Nationalism in Italian
Education, New York, Italian Digest and News Service, 1927,
p. 109).
 114

CHAPTER IV
EDUCATION, LAW, AND CULTURE

1. Prospect and retrospect?.

By 1912 the method of Actual Idealism had crystallized
definitely in Gentile's mind. From this time forward his thought
is a continual effort to apply this new instrument more and more
widely over the whole range of human experience. Hence there is
a new unity of treatment about his work after this year. But
the dominant notions of his philosophy do not change: indeed,
it would be surprising if they did, for it was the attempt to
clarify these key ideas in his ov/n mind that guided him in his
criticism of the past history of philosophy, and eventually
produced the "method of pure immanence".
He studied Hegel in the light of his Kantian inheritance
and decided that the current interpretation of his Philosophy of
Spirit was mistaken: Objective Spirit, the State, is not
opposed to the Subject but immanent within it; and Absolute
Spirit, the supramundane realms of Art, Religion, and Philosophy,
is not opposed to but rather immanent within the real world of
Objective Spirit'. The State is the concrete historical will of
the good citizen; and Art, Religion and Philosophy are on the
one hand transcendental—the ideal moments through which that
will determines itself—and, on the other hand actual—i.e.
determinate objects or institutions which fall under the dominion
of that will.
Having gone this far, within the Hegelian pattern, towards
a philosophy of pure immanence, the method of rigorous adherence
 115-

to actual experience presented itself clearly as the ideal of

philosophical investigation. But a strict application of this
criterion inevitably undermined the basic fabric of the Hegelian
philosophy. The absolute freedom involved in the identification
of the rational individual with the State as an ethical reality,
requires that there be no pre-existing absolute Nature behind,
and no absolute programme of development ahead. If Logic is to
be unified with the Philosophy of Spirit, as it must be in a
completely immanent interpretation of reality, then the Philo-
sophy of Nature must disappear—for it is only an illusion
resulting from their separation. But also Logic itself must
lose its absolute objectivity, its systematic completeness; not
only the Philosophy of Nature but everything that was tradi-
tionally meant by the Philosophy of History must go by the board.
A philosophy of pure immanence must necessarily deny that
the traditional distinction between particular and universal is
speculatively valid:-'- and, as a result, the 'philosophies' of
nature and history become illegitimate, since it is no longer
possible to distinguish the 'particular' facts from the immanent
'universal' meaning of the facts. The philosopher can no more
presuppose the work of the historian (as Gentile had proposed
in 1897), than the historian can presuppose the facts. In
short, the logic of the universe cannot be separated from the
actual history of the world; and therefore the traditional a
priori method of absolute idealism ("which Gentile had defended

-'-It is this denial that defines what is meant by 'purity'

in this context.
 116

in the Philosophy of Marx) rests upon a mistake. Hence all that

remains of the imposing fabric of Hegel's Logic in Actual Idealism
is the dialectic of Absolute Spirit—the three transcendentals,
Art, Religion,, and Philosophy. A priori schemas of the spirit
(such as the one given in the essay on "The Unity of the
Secondary School") are recognized'as mere abstractions danger-
ously tainted with empiricism.2
It was necessary to treat the earlier writings separately,
even at the expense of a certain amount of repetition; for it
would be difficult to bring out the significance of this revolu-
tionary simplification in any other v/ay. The first important
work in which the new method is consistently employed is the
Summary of Educational Theory: and the analysis of the master-
pupil relationship in that work is the root analogy upon which
Gentile's systematic philosophy of society depends. We shall
not begin with this analysis, however, since it seems best to
present his systematic theory in logical, rather than chrono-
logical, order; and this means that we must consider first of
all his mature views about the most primitive and fundamental
of human societies—the family.3

2
The main fault of the schema mentioned (given on p. 81
above) is the misconception of the relation of history and science
that is involved in it. The real difference between these two
activities is not that the former deals with the particular and
the latter with the universal, but that the former deals with the
concrete, and the latter with the abstract universal.
^Two short essays (B.718 and B.7 22) referred to in the
following section v/ere written as opening speeches for Congresses
which Gentile addressed as Fascist Minister of Public Instruction.
There are traces in them of Gentile's own stile fascista and
they therefore belong properly to a-later chapter! But I have
chosen to deal with them here in order to make the total picture
complete.
 117

2. The Child and the Family.

We saw at the end of the last chapter that Gentile regarded
the moments of the Hegelian Absolute as being truly absolute, in
the sense that as ideal elements or tendencies they are present
in every determinate form of human consciousness. Thus, although
we call some experiences by the general name of Art, others
Religion, and others again Philosophy, there is in reality no
experience that does not involve a subjective moment, an objec-
tive moment and their immanent synthesis; the empirical classi-
fication is merely an indication that one or other of these
aspects is, or at least appears to be, predominant. We saw also
that in Gentile's view the predominance of one of these ideal
moments in a total conception of life is characteristic of
certain stages of human consciousness. Every individual must
grow through the prior stages in order to rise finally to the
synthetic (philosophical) viewpoint—a self-consciousness which
though not complete (for no one is ever completely self-conscious)
is at least disciplined, reflective and critical.

In the light of this conviction, Gentile, like Vico,

finds metaphysical significance in the tendency of young children
to weave private fantasies and perform symbolic imitations.
These activities of the child must be understood from within;
they cannot be measured and judged in relation to an abstract
norm like the one established by empirical psychology: the
scientific attempt to construct a formal scheme of the progress
of the child's development results merely in the creation of a
mechanical toy—il fanciullo fantoccio, the doll-child, as
Gentile calls it.^" The real child has a life of his own, a world
of his own, which we must enter if we wish to understand him.
He is not aware that this world of his is not the real world,
that his experience is not mature—in the moment of actual
experience, as Gentile points out, we are all children in this
sense: our present experience would not be what it is if we were
already conscious of it as incomplete and imperfect. It is only
for the adult that the child is a 'child'—an immature human.
He appears to us as rapt in a dream: but in the dream there is
no other reality than the dream world. It is only in the waking
world that the dream becomes a part and not the v/hole of reality;
there would be no sense in calling it a dream if we never awoke.
This dream quality, according to Gentile, is the essential
characteristic of art; and he draws quite a detailed parallel
between the situation of the child and that of the artist. The
characters of an artist's world are always new creations, and
they follow the will of their creator. Thus, for instance,
"Manzoni may well come upon his own wife one day in an attitude
that he has never expected or wished for, but donna Prassede
will alv/ays speak and act according to the intent of her
author."5 Or again, the persons in the Divine Comedy are histor-
ical: but Dante has removed them from the context of the real
world, and placed them in a dream, in which they have a new
life quite independent of anything that may be discovered about
the original historical personalities through scholarly research.

4
B.1225, pp. 11 f.
ibid.., pp. 26-27.
 119

Within this ideal kingdom the artist is absolute lord and

the external world is quite irrelevant to him. But he must
issue from the magic confines of his imagination, and enter the
real world eventually; and in this world his will is not absolute,
though he like all of us possesses at all times some measure of
1
artisrfcic' spontaneity. We sometimes 'get our own way' as the
saying is,even in the harder world of real life.
Like the artist the child constructs his own dream world;
but he does not recognize that it is a dream, and so it falls to
us to awaken him. In his world he affirms his own personality,
his own will, and does not understand the limiting power of the
real world. But even so he has his own end, which possesses for
him an independent value. There is an objective religious moment
in the most subjective artistic activity: a real morality under-
lies even the self—assertive egoism of the child.
Certainly this aesthetic morality has little connection
with the practical world of adult human society; but in the
child's play there is a seriousness which we miss if we view it
only from the outside, and not from his point of view." His
imitative activity expresses his determination to assimilate the
world, and set the seal of his subjectivity upon it: and in his
habit of destroying something that he has done v/ith, he evinces
his anxiety to progress. These are the primitive elements which
are necessary for a sober yet critical moral consciousness; with-
out them the child would grow into a sort of vegetable in human

"Gentile considers that most 'play-theorists' of education

did serious violence to the moral nature of the child by advo-
cating 'play' as a pedagogic method while adopting an adult view
of 'play' as opposed to 'work'. (B.1225, pp. 42-43).
 120

form. The subjectivity that he so strongly affirms is what makes

him really human.
This seriousness and this primitive sense of objectivity
does not properly involve any sacrifice of self, however.
Certainly the child sympathizes intensely with all the 'persons"
in his orbit—which may include his toys, his pets and other
things:, but a real sacrifice of personal will implies a recog-
nition of social responsibility; and the first society into v/hich
he really enters is the family. Here he ceases to be a despot—
even if a benevolent and sympathetic one. In this way the
family raises man above the beasts.'
For Gentile, as for Hegel, the family is important as the
first determinate form of spiritual community, the first obj'ec-
tification of the Spirit: but there is an interesting contrast
in the attitude that they adopt towards it. Hegel is primarily
concerned with the institution of marriage: and he sees in the
child an objective fulfilment of the moral contract, an outward
expression of the meaning of the institution, the continuation of
spiritual life. For Gentile on the other hand, the subjective
attitudes of the persons concerned, and especially of the child,
whose existence as a conscious being hardly interests Hegel at
o
all, are of vital importance. It is the society of feeling into
which the child enters that is important—far more important than

7
B.1225, p. 70; cf. B.718 in B.1057, pp. 88-89.
"This judgement is somewhat unfair. For Hegel is cer-
tainly concerned about the family as an institution in which the
child is educated. But I have deliberately chosen to exaggerate
in order to point a contrast that undoubtedly exists.
 121

the material sustenance he receives.9

There is an essential difference between the human family
and any form of animal organization. The latter is always charac-
terized by a fundamentally instinctive quality, whereas the
former is from the first a result of conscious volition.
This character of consciousness, this expression of
will, is the keynote of every later relationship that
man may establish between himself and creatures like
himself, or between himself and the natural world.10
The link that binds us to the family is one that may be broken:
at the root of the family, and of all other human communities,
there is an act of will. Without it father, mother, and child do
not exist; for the biological link is only a fact like other
facts—it does not necessitate any kind of conscious relation.
It is the business of the family, then, to awaken the child
to a recognition of wills and values other than his own: to
teach him something of the virtue of self-sacrifice and respect
for others. This enlargement of consciousness is the whole
process of education; and formal education should not be looked
on as a divergent or even as a parallel activity—it is entirely
at one v/ith domestic education:
. . . all education moves.along this same path on which
man sets foot as an infant, from the moment when he learns

3
I do not, by any means, wish to imply that Hegel denied
the importance of the subjective side of family life; it was he,
I believe, who first called it the "society of feeling". But
since 'feeling' for Hegel is something primitive and immediate,
there is not much that can be said about it in his terms: whereas
for Gentile nothing is strictly immediate, and 'feeling' is the
determinate concreteness of the act of consciousness, which is
his most fundamental concern.
10
B.1225, p. 71.
 122

to look into the face of his mother, and begins, as the

old poet says, to recognize by her smile the one who
assists him, pours out her love for him, clasps him to
her breast and welcomes him to her own heart, and thus
makes him rise to a social existence, a higher spiritual
life, which belongs no'longer to an individual but to
two people; a social lifer the life in which he dis-
covers himself outside of himself, his own heart in the
heart of another, his own soul and his own feelings in
another's breast.H
Education begins v/ithin this first primitive society; but
the social bond itself is more primitive than the educative
activity. The parents are bound to the child by a sense of moral
responsibility, even before its birth, from the moment when they
realize that it will be born: for "from the time v/hen we first
receive a human being into our thoughts, we cannot but feel our-
selves bound to him by moral ties."-*-2 And on the other hand, the
family is never simply absorbed into a wider scheme of things
v/hen the child goes to school; it is transcended, but it is not
left behind—it remains always as the foundation stone of all
formal education. The domestic education itself never ceases;
and there is one way in which it is superior to that of any other
school: it possesses in a high degree the religious character
that is essential to education—and indeed fundamental "in every
truly human spiritual relationship."13
The family is the eternal guardian of that pietas on which
civilization depends; the pietas which expresses itself in

lx
B.7l8 in B.1057, p. 90.
12
ibid. , p. 92.
13ibid.} p. 94. A special emphasis on the 'religious'
character of society is the keynote of the stile fascista as it
appears in Gentile's writings.
 123,

respect for traditions and institutions, and in willingness to

die in their defence.14 The child's relationship with his mother
provides him with an example of, and an opportunity for self-
sacrifice; and his father's authority has a natural quality, a
felt absoluteness, that no external authority can ever have.^-5
If the family does not send children to school with a natural
readiness to give trust and accept authority, the teacher is in a
very difficult position. Here, in this preparatory opening of the
mind, lies the real essence of family relations. Gentile could
never allow that education v/as only an incidental or particular
function: "The education of children is the very problem the
family exists to solve."16 This problem expresses the meaning
of the family for the parents as v/ell as for the children since
it is a task which they can only perform if they have already
opened their hearts and minds. Hence it is a mistake to talk of
duties of gratitude from children to parents; they simply join
in a general surrender of the lesser self to a greater.

What do we mean by going about talking of the duties

of gratitude that our children owe us, as if our own
children v/ere separate from us, foreign to our own
personality, passers-by who come to the door of our
house to ask us for something which we might refuse
them? Our children are our very selves, our own soul,
our personality. In educating them v/e educate
ourselves; in order to educate them v/e have to create
the family for ourselves continually, day by day as
the expression of our humanity.17

!4B.718 in B.1057, p. 95.

15
B.722 in B.1057, p. 124.
16
B.7l8 in B.1057, p. 98; cf. ibid., p. 88.
17ibid., p. 98.
 124

This is the ideal of the family and it is an ideal to

which reality must somehow or other approximate. It is a matter
of concern to the State—in which the purpose of the family
receives complete and concrete expression—that some institution
should perform the task of the family, where the natural foun-
dation is for some reason lacking. Hence the provision of
orphanages and similar institutions is a public duty.l° It used
to be thought that education and family life were no concern of
the State. But as soon as we grasp the ethical character of
society such a view becomes nonsensical. The business of the
family is education; but domestic education is only a foundation
—though a necessary one—for the formal education provided by
the greater community: "the work of the family must be sensible
of, and support at every moment, the work of the school, in
v/hich it should concur. "19 "Thus the family is absorbed and
elevated, its v/ork consolidated, by the higher activity of the
State."20
The 'natural' character of the family, v/hich might perhaps
seem to give it a certain independent value, is really ambiguous.
So far as it is strictly natural, it can have no moral value:
but it never is a bond of sheer instinct. It may well be hard
to separate the element of natural impulse from that of moral
volition in family relations; but the same is true in all other
realms of experience:

18B.722 in B.1057, pp. 122-123.

1
9B.718 in B..1057, p. 88.
20
B.722 in B.1057, p. 123.
 125

Where does the love that seconds and sustains the

family finish, and that which maintains and streng-
thens the domestic bonds as duties begin? Human life
is all woven out of this double nature: on the one
hand it seems to us that everything grov/s naturally.
Love takes possession of our hearts unobserved, it
grows up on a sudden, and seems to draw us on; but on
the other hand, reflection alv/ays intervenes, weighing,
valuing, distinguishing, in order to destroy and
extirpate the weeds, and guard the plants whose
flowers are the ideals of life.21
The family is to the school as the body to the soul. It
is the organic base and fountain of life, on which the whole
structure of conscious life must be built. It is an essential
element in human personality: but it is properly an instrument
of the higher life of reflective consciousness rather than an
end in itself. Above it stands the school, and above the school,
the State. But just as the school must be restored to health
before the State can be made healthy, so the family must first
be sound before any reform of the school can take effect. For
v/ithin the family man is born—in the spiritual not merely the
literal sense—man, the moral individual v/ho is the substance of
family, school, and State alike.

3. The School and the Pupil.

The school completes the awakening of the child. For him
it represents discipline, objectivity, even force. Yet ulti-
mately the end of the school is the full realization of liberty.
The object must be resolved into the subject; education is the
conquest of the world by the spirit, not vice versa. But it

^B.722 in B.1057, p. 125; cf. B.718 in B.1057, p. 98.

22
Cf. B.718 in B.1057, pp. 93, 99.
 126

begins with what we may call the demand of the world to be

actually conquered and not simply ignored. From this point of
view the school is the repository of the past of mankind: a
past v/ith which the present—the consciousness of the pupil—
must come to terms, since it is the proper content of the
present. From this root springs the 'realistic' prejudice
discussed in our first chapter:
The ideal, and hence the historical, origin of the
school, is directly connected with the realistic
presupposition. For the school begins when man
acquires consciousness of an existing social and
cultural patrimony that should not be wasted.23
But the burden of objective culture is too great for any
individual. Face to face with objectivity the mind quails: it
is necessary to create a little artificial v/orld, lest the
beginner lose heart. Hence the school fulfils a selective as
well as a preservative function:
The ocean is there facing the pupil, as it faces
every man who is born to the life of culture and
feels the lure of it. But at first he clings to the
dry land and needs someone else to give him the
courage at least for the first plunge.
But consider. Who will encourage him to dive
into this great ocean in which he would certainly
come to grief? He must at first be satisfied to 2
encounter it in some calm and sheltered cove . . . 4
• But as v/e know, the apparent 'realism' of the school is an
illusion. Actually, the whole process of education, the whole
life of the school, is internal to the consciousness of the
pupil. All the enormous mass of objective culture or funded'

23
B.1128, pp. 157-158; cf. English translation (B.659),
p. 76.
2
^ibid_., p. 60; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 79.
 127

experience iii' books and libraries will be absolutely without

significance unless, it is brought to life in his mind. Hence
his liberty must on no account be suppressed; he must not be
frightened into pessimism. The school has a moral mission which
is the second moment of the antinomy of education; it must
develop in the pupil a sense of his independence of the objective
world, and foster in him a concrete liberty—that is, a sense of
moral responsibility. "By liberty we mean the power, proper to
man, of malting himself what he is, and hence of initiating the
series of events in v/hich all of his activity manifests
itself."25 Moral liberty, though it is proper to man, is some-
thing more than the spontaneity of fancy and sentiment that he
possesses quasi—naturally. Indeed Man himself is not a natural
entity—something that exists—in any sense of the word;
. . . from the moral point of view, man is man in so
far as he is capable of resisting and withdrawing
himself from the overpowering force of passion which
impels him to return evil for evil and hatred for
hatred. He ought to pardon, he ought to love the
enemy who does him wrong. Only if he can understand
the beauty of this pardon and this love, and is so
attracted by it that he no longer does what might be
expected of him in the natural order of things, does
he cease to count as a merely natural being and
attain to that higher world which is the world of
morality, in which he must gradually develop his
specifically human character.26

This ideal moral freedom is at once the presupposition and *

the end of education, and indeed of all human activity. Any
deterministic theory is contradictory; for it can only be

2
5B.1128, p. 33; cf. English Translation (B.659), p. 41.
2fa
jbid., pp. 34-35 (Gentile's italics); cf. English
translation (B.659), pp. 43-44.
 128

thought as true by an intelligence that is free to think the

truth.27
Thus arises the great problem of education. On the one
hand, the teacher represents the universal, truth, beauty,
religion—not because they somehow belong to him, but because he
speaks for humanity—as against the particularity of the pupil,
which must be subjected; from this point of view, the pupil's
liberty must be denied absolutely, and the authority of the
teacher must be recognized.28 But on the other hand, education
presupposes the moral freedom and responsibility of the pupil,
and aims at its continual increase.
The resolution of this antinomy is education itself, as it
actually occurs v/ithin the consciousness of the pupil. The
school is not set up because someone wishes to teach, but because
someone wishes to learn. In the v/ill to learn the moments of
authority and liberty are reconciled. The pupil, therefore, is
"the living centre of the school",2° which consists purely in the
"communication of culture" and "fulfils its v/hole being v/ithin
the spirit of the learner".3°
This resolution of the antinomy is historical, and remains
alv/ays problematic; it is never final or complete; for here
again, as in the case of the family, the solving of the problem

27
Cf. B.1128, pp. 35-40; or English translation (B.659),
pp. 45-51.
28
ibid., pp. 29-32; English translation (B.659), pp. 36-40.
Cf. also~B7T252, pp. 47-48.
2
9 B . 1 2 5 1 , p. 189.

3°B.1128, p. 64; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 85.

 129

constitutes the actual existence of the institution. The school

is precisely this problem of the reconciliation of the master's
authority with the pupil's liberty, and it could not exist if
the problem did not present itself continually in new forms. The
speculative solution that v/e have expounded is only a regulative
ideal, "only a way along which every man of judgement and good
will can gradually progress as he continually solves his own
•3-]

problems". The "man of judgement and good will" on whom the

responsibility for solving this problem rests is the master; for
although the school is constituted entirely by the pupil, it
exists only in virtue of the teacher. It is an aspiration on the
part of the former towards the culture that the latter already
3?
possesses, and its actuality therefore consists in the spiri-
tual coincidence of the master behind the desk with the pupil
before it.. Thus it remains true that education is completely
fulfilled within the consciousness of the pupil since "The
master . . . is not external but internal, as St. Augustine
pointed out . . . or better still, he is_ the pupil himself in the
dynamism of his development. "-'•-'
In a nutshell, then, v/e may say that for Gentile the
school is nothing more or less than the will to learn. It exists
only in so far as this v/ill is aroused; and the duality of
teacher and pupil is always merely apparent. The v/hole of

31B.1128, p. 31. (The English translation, B.659, made

from the first edition, B.557, v/hich I have not seen, is barely
recognizable at this point—cf. p. 39).
32jbid., p. 59; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 78.
•^ibid., pp. 47, 48; cf. English translation (B.659),
pp. 61, bJ7~ Cf. also B.1157, p. 84.
 130

education is the conquest of this duality: and this conquest is

the problem of discipline.
The existence of a disciplinary problem implies the duality
v/hich is the non-being of education; and where the duality is
present, Gentile stands firmly on the authoritarian side of the
antinomy. It is the teacher who represents the universal; he is
morally responsible for the pupil.34 Bas authority is simply
that of the moral lav/, which is immanent in his will, just as,
according to the definition of Aristotle, it is immanent in the
v/ill of the judge: "For the judge wishes to be, as it were,
justice ensouled."35 Through the subjective mediation of the
teacher, the law acquires pov/er and becomes a living force. But
it is not the law that confers authority on the will; neither
does the will confer authority on the law: authority is just
their coincidence. Similarly, recognition of authority is
nothing but willing obedience to it, and thus involves the assimi-
lation of the lav/ on the part of the person subjected to it.
The 'otherness' of the law in its abstract objectivity is des-
troyed; but its concrete objectivity, its universality, remains—
that is to say it is felt as a duty.
So, then, if a teacher wishes to personify the authority
of the moral will in the eyes of his pupils his v/ill must be
impartial and rational; it cannot be simply his personal decision.

34B.1252, pp. 27, 47-48; cf. B.1128, p. 47 (English trans-

lation, B.659, p. 62) cited below.
, 35B.1252, j?. 28; cf. B.1157, p. 101. (o Y*f Su***<r-ct\£
^o-oN-fcToccfcTvaci.otov SCKOU-OV ek».^x)y.oV—Aristotle, Eth. Nic. V,
7, 1132a 21).
 131

If he wishes to discipline his pupils he must first discipline

himself. "Discipline is not the duty of the pupil, but rather the
fundamental duty of the master."3° While there is a plurality of
wills there is no real authority; but if many empirical individ-
uals are to concur in one active will, the law of that will must
be universal for each of them, that is it must be really objec-
tive, and not bound up v/ith the particular desires of any one of
them.
The discipline of the school must be sternly enforced; for
the lav/ is hard. But the spirit of enforcement must be rational.
The necessity v/hich is characteristic of true discipline is not a
suppression of liberty but rather its concrete determination.3'
At this point in his argument Gentile does not, as it seems to
me that he should, emphasize the voluntary character of any real
discipline, by insisting that the necessity of the law does not
suppress the freedom of the subject in so far as its rationality
is recognized, i.e. so far as it is accepted. He insists rather
that even slavery is a realization of this freedom in some
measure.38 This positive assertion would follow fairly obviously
from the negative line of argument that I have suggested; but a
considerable and sympathetic knowledge of Gentile's general view,
or at least of the Hegelian tradition is required in order to
recognize that my negative assertion follov/s from his positive
one as he understands it. His own argument looks like a sheer

36
B.1252, p. 37 (Gentile's italics).
37
B.1252, pp. 39-40.
38
ibid., p. 41.
 132

equivocation. "Here again," he says, "we must repeat: the

spirit is always free, and yet never free." The ordinary man may
be pardoned for thinking that a liberty that does not exclude
slavery is of little value to anyone.
Gentile is very much inclined to give these speculative
explanations of abuses almost as if the 'explanation' was enough
to justify the existence of the abuse. He even offers an account
of the breakdown of educational communication which is fundamen-
tally at variance v/ith his doctrine that the whole process of
education centres in the free self-consciousness of the pupil.
Even where communication fails, he argues that all is not lost as
long as the teacher's authority is maintained:
. . . if the master is not slack, but exerts a real
spiritual power, the persistence of the limit is still
of value in the spiritual development of the pupil, who
is not suppressed, but in virtue of the incoercible
liberty of his nature is rather provoked by this improper
educational action to affirm his own personality even
more vigorously. So that even in this case the school
is the forge of liberty, in spite of the contrary
intentions of the master. The school without liberty
is the school without life.39
As we have had occasion to remark before, a freedom v/hich
is so intimate as to be beyond coercion is easily ignored.4°
Gentile v/ould have done well to have remembered before he v/rote
this passage that the Devil can quote Scripture like a gentleman.
He provides here an unassailable apologia for the tyranny of the
pedant: nothing brings home more clearly the abstract nature of
his theory of pain and compulsion. He must surely have been

3yB.1128, p. 47; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 62.

40cf. Chapter III above, p. 87.
 133;

aware that many pupils have emerged from bad schools with their
wills broken or their characters twisted.
But this tendency towards metaphysical abstractness is only
one aspect of Gentile's thought—and by no means the most
important. It is better to remember the ideal that he preaches
than his insistence that it is always somehow realized: according
to this ideal, the unity of will v/hich is the reality of disci-
pline is love_41—but a love that is a real community of aim not
an ideal community of sentiment. It is not, like Cupid in the
legend, blind: it is an active love that arises from a full
understanding—the trust that grov/s up as a community is tried
and tested. Hence discipline is not really the prerequisite of
education, but something that is inseparable from its actual pro-
cess:: it is a dialectical creation that forms the ethical sub-
stance of the knowledge which each member of a class—including
the teacher—is continually acquiring. The beginning of true
discipline is the recognition by the pupils that the teacher can
give them something that they need; and the problem of disci-
pline only arises when communication fails and education ceases.
Such failures of communication are bound to occur. The
spiritual unity of teacher and learner is an a priori condition
of all education: but it remains alv/ays an ideal to be achieved.

In other v/ords there can be no education without discipline, yet

that discipline is never definitely attained. The voluntary,
spontaneous character of true discipline means that it is a

41
B.1252, pp. 42-44; cf. B.1128, p. 2. (This last passage
is not to be found in the English translation, B.659, as Gentile
rewrote the first chapter especially for a non-Italian audience).
 134

continual advance from indiscipline to discipline. Of necessity

the law appears at first as 'other'.
Alas for the school in which everyone understands from
the very first day, and the most perfect concord reigns
between master and pupils! In that school it is not the
pupils v/ho have risen to the level of the master, but
the master has descended to their level and is betraying
his duty—which is to be man! If the school is a school,
if someone has to learn something, there v/ill be fatigue
and effort: and hence failure and resurgence, sin and
expiation.42
Punishment, therefore, aims at the establishment of the
ideal unity between liberty and lav/. Its establishment not its
re-establishment; for we are concerned with the moments of an
eternal dialectic, not with stages of a temporal process.
Punishment is a right of the pupil as a moral being (just as
Hegel claimed it for the citizen). Gentile calls it a right of
the future repentant pupil: but this is a somewhat elliptic
remark for an actual idealist—it skates very rapidly over what
appears to be the insoluble problem in the theory of human rela-
tions. The pupil does not see the punishment as his future
right v/hen he is punished; for him it is an unpleasant natural
fact in the present. It is to the teacher that the punishment
appears as a present right of the future pupil or citizen: and
only by an act of faith can anyone affirm that It is "the future
man who demands of the educator the punishment that will redeem
him by subjecting him to discipline" or even "the future redeemed
sinner v/ho already from afar points out the punishment to v/hich
he has a present right".4J if punishment means the effective

2
B.1252, pp. 51-52.
3jbid., p. 53.
establishment of a community of purpose in the minds of master
and pupil, it is only truly punishment v/hen it is recognized as
just by the pupil who is punished: not until he recognizes it
as his right does it possess any moral value at all. The
future exists only for the teacher; but "education is fulfilled
in the mind of the learner": it is nonsense, therefore, to speak
of the future having rights. Such language is only a pompous
disguise for the fact that the teacher is obliged to take a step
in the dark, and act as the conscience of another human being:
an'd certainly he must do it, but it is wiser to do it humbly and
in doubt than in the full consciousness of self-righteousness.
There is more than a hint of the sin of spiritual pride about
Gentile's continual insistence on the moral responsibility of the
teacher for the pupil.
The moral value of the punishment inflicted must become
evident to the pupil: hence it can only be inflicted by someone
whom the pupil respects. Under these circumstances, what Gentile
says of the inner meaning of the punishment is true:
. . . given the concept of discipline as the actual
production of spiritual unity between master and pupil,
the primary consequence v/ill be the break Cdissidio^
between them: this is the original and fundamental
punishment to v/hich all others can be reduced.44
The thesis that all punishment should be directed to creating the
sense of this dissidio is really rather different from the more
Hegelian viev/ that it is a 'right' of the future man. It is more
consonant with the general tenor of Actual Idealism in v/hich the
consciousness of the subject—here the pupil—is central.

44B.1252, p. 54.
 136

Subordination of all punishment to this end involves an

immanent limitation:
The extent and gravity proper to punishment is
indicated by the end to be attained: a punishment
that denied, not what is accidental and particular,
but even the essential and universal element in the
soul of the transgressor, would cease to be punish-
ment and become a crime.
Punishment is justified by the good that it pro-
duces. 4 5
But v/ithin this general limitation there is no more reason to
outlaw corporal punishment than any other type. The body is a
part of the concrete personality—and indeed there is ,no v/ay of
inflicting punishments of any sort except through the mediation
of the body.
Through discipline and punishment the child learns, or
should learn, to appreciate objectivity. The purpose for which
he and the teacher labour together is something greater than
either of them, and this purpose is the source of the law by
v/hich both are bound. The child comes to school, at least in
Gentile's vision, with great eagerness—because he is envious of
his older playmates:
"As man with rumoured beauty falls in love" [Com'uom
per fama s'innamoral . . . so it happens that before we
have even been to school, v/e may already desire to go
there. (Oh the sweetness of anticipated joys in child-
hood, v/hen v/e first dreamt of all that the school
promised, as the day drew near when we v/ere to go, with
our older brothers and our friends a little bigger than
we, forward into that life, which had so strongly
attracted us as v/e glimpsed it in their tales and the
tales of oiir parents).4"o

45B.1252, p. 56.

46B.1128, p. 68; cf. English translation (B.659), pp. 90-91.

There is a distinctly autobiographical ring about this passage.
 137

But when he does reach the school the child has only just begun
to awaken from his daydream v/orld of spontaneous impulse, to the
realities of life in a wider community: and there is a great
danger that he may only come to terms with his new world
partially. He may limit his responsibility and adopt an egoistic
attitude. The school v/ill then have failed in its task of
opening the mind; a morally neutral, purely intellectual educa-
tion is no education:
For man is always moral v/ithin his v/orld. But his
v/orld ought to be continually growing. The scholar v/ho
is nonetheless a bad citizen, is a sound and honest
enough man in the world of his learning; and outside of
it there is no world for him. The peasant who has
learned to read and write and sends out blackmailing
letters, has been most inadequately instructed in
school—we may even say that he has not been instructed
at all . . .4?
Only through a clear recognition that the problem of disci-
pline is the fundamental problem of the whole of education, can
this final defeat be averted.48 The ultimate task of the school
is to produce a full consciousness of the responsibility of being
a human person. All instruction has a moral, that is to say a
philosophical purpose; and for this reason formal philosophy is
the proper crown of any adequate education. Only a really
critical vision of life as a whole can provide a firm basis for
the morality of the citizen—the human person who recognizes and
fulfils his social duties. 4-*

47
B . 1 2 5 1 , p . 238; cf. B.154 i n B.1056, p . 186.
48
B.1128 or ( E n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n ) B.659, Chapter V I I I
passim.
49
B . 1 2 5 2 , P a r t I I , Chapter IV; cf. B.1251, p p . 251-252.
 138;

But such a critical vision becomes possible only on the

basis of an initial acknowledgement that the objective world
possesses spiritual value even in its primitive 'otherness'; and
this acknowledgement is the essence of what Gentile calls
religion. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom":5°
responsibility must be accepted before moral freedom can be
exercised. The religious view of the v/orld—a quasi-immediate
sense of the Whole—forms a natural foundation for the critical,
spiritual, and creative attitude of philosophy, just as the
family provides a natural foundation for the initial, religious
phase of education. Human development, however, is not a pro-
gress along a straight line, but the gradual grov/th of an organic
universe in v/hich nothing is ever completely new; and therefore
the attitude adopted by the educator should always be critical
and philosophical.51 The myth of 'Science'—complete and perfect
knowledge—should not deceive him;52 even the dogmas of religious
faith need not and should not be taught dogmatically.53

;
For the corresponding moment in the life of the State—
the institution of Monarchy—see B.504 in B.561. (Cf. below,
Section 8, pp. 180 ff.).
51cf. for example, B.1251, p. 255; B.1252, p. 207; and
B.1128, p. 176 (English translation, B.659, p. 240).
52
B.1128, pp. 105-107; cf. English translation (B.659),
pp. 142-144.
53B.1252, pp. 193-194. Already in his appendix to "Scuola
laica" Gentile had^ made it clear that he did not regard the
teaching of dogmatic religion in a philosophical spirit as impos-
sible or hypocritical. In his view it was not a matter of
teaching v/hat one did not believe, but of putting v/hat one did
believe into a form in v/hich it could be appreciated. "I have
many things to say unto you: but ye cannot bear them now" was
the proper attitude for the schoolmaster. (Cf. B.1056,
 139

In view of his emphasis on the moral task of the school,

and of the essentially social—not to say political—character
of his ethical theory, it is fair to point out that Gentile's
conception of the educational process is much too strictly
personal. He writes always of a direct relation between teacher
and pupil, in v/hich the purpose and the law are purely regula-
tive ideals. Whereas, in reality, the school is an institution
which gives objective existence to these ideals in its code of
rules. The 'school rules* v/ere not made by the teacher, and the
pupil knows that they were not; this is vitally important, for
no one can be expected to accept another person as the mouth-
piece of Reason—even when he appears to be a perfect example of
the discipline he is trying to enforce—except, perhaps, after
long acquaintance with him and experience of his character.
Again, the practical conflict of authorities in a single school,
which constitutes for Gentile a difficulty that can only be
resolved empirically, is actually resolved in a speculative sense
through the idea of the school as an institution above the
teachers, an institution having a life of its ov/n founded on the
rules under which it is organized, together v/ith the tradition
that is built up gradually in its historical evolution. Anyone
who has grov/n up in a school that possesses a corporate existence
of this kind, will agree that his own education for citizenship
rested far more on the notion of ''the School' as a society of

pp. 158-161).
In his emphasis on the place of myth in education Gentile
reminds us of Plato: but the critical attitude that he advocates
reflects the enormous difference betv/een the Platonic view of
truth and his own.
 140

v/hich he was a member, and to which he owed allegiance, than on

regulative ideals such as Art, Science, Philosophy, Religion,
Right, or Morality.54 jt may be that this is a peculiarly
English viev/, and that Italian schools in 1913, when Gentile
wrote his Summary of Educational Theory, gave little sign of
possessing a life of this kind. Even so it is strange that he
did not pay more attention to the possibility of developing the
school as a social institution, when v/e remember that in his view
the primary duty of the school is to produce good citizens. He
is deeply concerned about the necessity to preserve a really
personal relationship betv/een the master and his pupils; and he
pleads that a school should be a spiritual unit. But when he
speaks of this unity he seems to be thinking only of the class-
room relation in which the teacher is necessarily dominant: and
the spirit of the school about v/hich he talks so much, is just
the universal tendency—i.e. the philosophical attitude—
immanent in the process of beaching. He never speaks of the
school as a place or an institution in which children are
educated, largely by one another, in the difficult art of living
together—for them the 'school-spirit'means something quite
different. Yet.there can be no school which does not fulfil
this function in some measure, and one would have expected him to
perceive its importance.
As a matter of fact 'education' seems in his mind to be a
•transaction between one teacher and one pupil who strive to

54gee B.1252, p. 48 for this list of universal values which

the teacher should represent. Cf. also B.1128, p. 30 (English
translation, B.659, p. 36).
 141

overcome their duality; and so far as they are master and pupil,
"The consciousness of the master is the infinite moment of the
self-consciousness of the pupil.u^^ Everything must begin from
the finite moment of the pupil's consciousness, his past experi-
ence, v/hat he already knows; but if there is to be any learning
this moment must be transcended—and in this self-transcendence
the teacher helps him. For the pupil to have any other incentive
than the simple desire to know is immoral and dangerous. The
teacher may be a man of flesh and blood with economic incentives;
but the pupil should not even compete for prizes5°—he is like a
novice in a monastery, alone with his God whose name is Know-
ledge. It may be doubted whether this austere intellectualism is
the best attitude to adopt in opening the mind of the young. The
truth is that as a professor Gentile could not help regarding the
school simply as a breeding ground for university students, in
spite of the fact that.in his speculative theory it has a much
broader significance.

4. The "Philosophy of Law" (i): The theory of Good and Evil.

The account of school discipline in his Educational Theory
is of fundamental importance for the whole of Gentile's social
philosophy; and in particular it provides the key to an under-
standing of his Foundations of the Philosophy of Law, which was
based on a course of lectures delivered at the University of Pisa
in 1916. He had not previously concerned himself v/ith legal

55B.1252, p. 73 (Gentile's italics).

56ibid. , p.. 56.
 142

philosophy: and it might v/ell appear that the book is an acci-

dental result of an academic task. But it has been shown fairly
conclusively that it was actually the result of several years of
meditation and discussion v/hich began in 1913, just at the time
v/hen Gentile was finishing the second volume of his educational
treatise.57
The Philosophy of Law in its original form was a summary
treatment of three main problems:
(a) the relation of the individual to society;
(b) the relation betv/een force and law;
(c) the relation between lav/ and morality. 58
But before we proceed to consider his treatment of these problems,
we had better pause to consider Gentile's general view of the
relation between good and evil, since he regarded an under-
standing of this problem as a necessary prerequisite for the
comprehension of his philosophy of law.59
Reality in its moral aspect—or in other words, the spirit
as creative activity—is a dialectical unity of good and evil.
Good is a process; it is the gradual realization of the good

57see the article by Arnaldo Volpicelli in Vita e_ pensiero,

Vol. I, pp. 364-379.
58To the first version of the book Gentile added at
various times an Introduction—see note 59' following—and two
essays on political philosophy written in 1930 and 1931 (B.989
and B.1017) which must be reserved for later consideration (see
Chapter VII, Sections 3 and 4 ).
59in 1914 Gentile wrote an essay on Rosmini's ethics for
an edition of that author's Il_ principio della morale (B.308).
This essay v/as reprinted as an appendix to the second edition of
the Philosophy of Law; and appeared as an Introduction to the
third edition (B.1157) v/ith the title: "Introduction to the
study of practical philosophy or of the moral life".
 143

will which occurs in the conquest of evil. Hence the good can
never exist in a state of final perfection, for its perfection
would imply its annihilation—if the process v/ere completed there
would be an end to all value. The good is not so much the palm,
of victory over evil as the actual winning of the battle. Objec-
tive evil is the obstacle, the reality v/hich the will seeks to
remould: and evil in the will is simply absence of self-
consciousness—the non-willing of the good. 0
It v/ould be easy to simplify this view into a kind of
Socratic intellectualism; but it would also be a mistake. Gentile
would certainly agree that "Virtue is Knowledge", and it is
obvious that he must hold like Socrates that no one wilfully
does wrong. But this does not mean that Evil is simply an
illusion, a will-o'-the-wisp of ignorance. It is as real as
good; the two forms are inseparable. -*- The doing of a good
action—which is for Gentile the v/hole reality of good—is the
perception and removal of some evil. There is no perfect way of
life: the moral man is never without a sense of sin. For his
good action as soon as it is completed, is no longer an act but
a fact, v/hich is not good or evil in itself, but only in virtue
of his critical reconsideration of it. Since this consideration
is (empirically speaking) a new act, 2 it has, necessarily, a
negative moment involving a perception of some evil: there is

60
Cf. B.308 in B.1157, pp. 7-11.
61
B.1157, P. 70.
fe2
Absolutely speaking i t is the act and is not part of a
series.
always some further good to be done. What in the original act
was the solution of a moral problem, becomes a new problem as
soon as it is thus objectified. 'The* good is alv/ays in the
future, eternally real and eternally unreal.
Even if we set aside the charge of intellectualism, how-
ever, the fact remains that Gentile takes a completely negative
view of evil. His theory is not far removed from the orthodox
Christian tradition according to v/hich evil is only a privation
of good. Many thinkers have rejected this view as inadequate to
account for the concrete and substantial character of evil in
human history. Gentile naturally feels bound to defend himself
against criticism of this sort; and he does so by attacking the
alternative doctrine that good and evil are both positive and
objective realities. He condemns belief in the positive nature
of evil as a complete error, although he admits that it is an
error which is difficult to eradicate from the human mind. It
reminds him of the story of the simpleton Mancini, v/ho hired a
train of asses to take his grain to market. On the v/ay home he
felt tired and mounted one of them; then, when he counted them he
was alarmed to discover that there was one missing. He left his
wife in charge of the string v/hen he arrived home, and rode back
along the v/ay seeking the missing animal. At last in despair he
turned homewards again.
And only when he reached home, long after nightfall,
and his wife persuaded him to dismount, did he discover
the ass that he had been seeking so wearily.—One v/ho
perceives evil without perceiving the good in which that
evil is conquered and annulled, sees the asses that he
has in front of him, but not the one on which' he is
riding: he sees the v/ill opposed to his own, and which
he calls evil, but not his ov/n in virtue of which he
calls the other evil, and apart from which the other
 145

would not exist as evil. It is not really possible to

be aware of the evil that exists in this world without
• thereby attaining to a spiritual attitude morally
superior to it. For evil cannot be treated as an
indifferent fact of nature; it is judged; and the
judgement is a condemnation, which is a rebellion of
conscience—that is, an act of good will. So that
evil is not, and cannot be, evil in itself. When evil
is evil, it is already dead in the purifying conscience
that judges it.63>
We had occasion, in dealing with the very similar account
that Gentile gives of pleasure and pain, to remark that he lays
too much emphasis on the formal 'overcoming1 of the negative
moment that is involved in the simple consciousness of it. If
v/e adopt a purely formal interpretation of the metaphysical
'overcoming' of evil here offered, it is hard to see how Gentile
can be defended against the charge of Protagorean subjectivism.
The ethics of Actual Idealism on such an interpretation v/ould be
very close to the sceptical solipsism of Pirandello as certain
critics have claimed. 4
This interpretation, however, demonstrates rather the
inadequacy of the critic than the inadequacy of the doctrine.
For, as Vico puts it, it is only "Men of limited ideas" v/ho
"take for law v/hat the v/ords expressly say". Such a narrow-
minded literal approach makes Gentile a supporter of the very
attitudes that he most abhorred: scepticism and abstract
individualism. Y/e must, then, consider carefully v/hat 'the
words' mean in the light of v/hat we know of his presuppositions.
When he says, for instance, that "when evil is evil it is already

6
3B.308 in B.1157, p. 12.
k4e.g. Angelo Crespi, Contemporary Thought of Italy,
London, Williams and Norgate, 1926, p. vi.
 146

dead", he does not mean that, when we have decided that something
is evil, we have a perfect right to adopt towards it the attitude
associated with the name of M. Coue. He means that it is dead if
and only if we have truly felt it as an absolute evil that must
at all costs be eradicated. Certainly, the good for v/hich we
really live and strive is what seems good to us; but equally
what really seems good to us iis the good for v/hich we live: that
is, ultimately, the good for which v/e are prepared to die—it is
not some Utopian ideal by which v/e measure the" world in a philo-
sopher's study. "The act of condemning evil and that of willing
good are one and the same act."°5 Furthermore, although 'the'
good is what seems good to_ us, it is not what seems good for us
as individuals: it is precisely that element in our individual
consciousness v/hich seems to us to be objective—an element that
possesses absolute universal value, which others can and shall
be made to recognize, even if we die for it. The moral over-
coming of evil which occurs as soon as it is felt as evil, is
no thing but the willingness for such a sacrifice. Gentile's
theory of good and evil is a tremendous challenge to sincerity.
Only a man who accepts absolutely the viev/ that an intellectual
conviction must be demonstrated in action can be an actual
idealist.
In this view of the moral life the distinction between
knowing and doing is abolished; but nonetheless the distinction
between v/ill and intellect is not without value "even v/hen v/e
have got beyond the concept of the empty intellect extraneous to

6
5 B . 1 1 5 7 , p. 69.
 147

reality".66 We can look at reality from without as well as from

within. V/hen we look at it from without it is simply a fact,
nature, or sheer will. 7 It is an act already completed:
"completed by an empirically assignable subject (human volition)
or by a subject assignable only metaphysically (nature)." While
on the other hand, v/hen we look at it from within it is a con-
scious activity v/hich opposes itself to this practical reality,
v/hile at the same time positing it. "So that v/hen we look in-
wards, thought is found to be not something opposed to volition,
hut rather a volitional activity itself." The reality which is
thus 'posited' in moral consciousness is never posited as inde-
pendent of that consciousness. The end of action is some activity
—empirically called pleasure. "

5» The "Philosophy of Law" (ii):

War and Society in interiore homine.
Within thought understood in this active sense there is
always an obstacle or an enemy. In common parlance, the enemy
may be internal or external: it may be our ov/n avarice or sel-
fishness, or it may be some abuse existing in the v/orld around us.
But in the final analysis it is alv/ays 'internal* in that it is
our enemy: good and evil are not simply natural, even for those
who define them according to some notion of natural law. They
must be mediated by conscience. Moral good—that is, good when

66
B.1157, p. 61.
^7cf. above Chapter I I , p . 57. Note the contrast v/ith
G e n t i l e ' s e a r l i e r viev/ (Chapter I I I , pp. 83-84).
68-i
B.1157, PP. 62-63. Cf. above Chapter I I , pp. 51-52.
 14&

it is thus mediated—is a developing process, a continuing tragic

struggle. The individual strives to conquer his own particularity
and will the universal good which is public justice. His self-
consciousness raises him almost automatically above the immediacy
of natural instinct: hence strict atomic individualism is a
chimera. Even at the most primitive level the will has a moral
quality because its end is felt as absolute: the bellum omnium
contra omnes is not a war of individuals but a v/ar of the
individual against forces which are simply natural. It is the
shipwrecked sailor's struggle v/ith the sea.
The egoist's mistake lies not in giving a wrong solution
to the problem of his life, but in formulating the
problem wrongly: once the problem is stated in his
terms it cannot be resolved by the 9moral consciousness
(universal v/ill) in any other way.
Thus even the primitive instinct of self-preservation takes
on a moral absoluteness for the egoist. But through the struggle
of all against all a higher v/ill gradually asserts itself: the
abstract plurality of wills is mediated; the individvials are
compelled to recognize their particularity and the v/ar finally
ceases v/hen a triily Liniversal v/ill emerges. Hence v/ar, as the
process of mediation, is the establishment of peace; and since
mediation is always necessary, 'v/ar' and 'peace' in this specLi-
lative sense are not empirical states but dialectical moments,
eternally necessary to one another. The moral will is unceasingly
critical.
There are some conflicts that are more violent and some
that are less; but the will is always a concordia discors:
and the discord in which particular interests are

69
B.1157, p. 72.
 149

apparent is a moment of the concord in v/hich the diver-

gent interests are pacified in the universality of the
will, which is unique.70
In considering Gentile's theory of the moment of conflict in
human relations, v/e should remember that his Philosophy of Law
v/as written during the First World War. In October 1914 he
delivered a lecture on "The Philosophy of the War", and it is
obvious that the ideas of that lecture were still very much in
his mind two years later when he was working on his legal and
social philosophy. In the earlier essay'-*- he distinguishes
three different concepts of war. The first is the metaphysical
concept of v/ar as the dialectical principle of opposition which
generates all reality—Heracleitus' "war the mother of all
things"; the second is the ordinary empirical concept of war which
Kant opposed in his pamphlet on perpetual peace; and the third
is the historical or really philosophical conception of war
invoked by Fichte in his Addresses to the German Nation.
The second conception Gentile dismisses as irrelevant to
philosophy—though he cannot resist the temptation to make
sarcastic remarks about pacifism and "idyllic conceptions" of
life in general.'2 The first he shows to be properly identical

'^B.1157, p. 73.
71B.306 in B.497, pp. 1-24. The title of this essay, "La
filosofia della guerra", is ambiguous. It can mean "The Philo-
sophy of War" or "The Philosophy of the War". Gentile deals with
both topics—and to make matters v/orse he concludes that they are
concretely identical. It seemed to me that the only way to
reflect this 'actualism' v/as to emphasize the historical aspect
of this unity and call the essay "The Philosophy of the V/ar".
72
He seems to think that, because many of the theoretical
defences of pacifism belong to the period of the Enlightenment
"v/hich was the anti-historical century" and because we have
 150

with the third, since Heracleitus' conception of v/ar as an ,exter-v

nal principle was only a superficial comprehension of the eternal
reality of war—which is really internal to consciousness. The
truly metaphysical v/ar is not the universal conflict of Nature—
which is an abstraction contemplated in imagination—but the
unity of opposites in the human will. This inner conflict is
necessary and eternal precisely because the opposites form a
unity: it is the rhythm of the spirit. The 'other' to whom 'I*
am opposed is within me; and hence 'I' cannot avoid the
conflict. But this war in v/hich 'I 1 am involved, and v/hich 'I'
cannot avoid, is the war with which Fichte is concerned. This
then is the unique concept of v/ar, the only concept with which
the philosopher is properly concerned;
The war that I fight with someone else, or that a
people, v/hen it has established a definite personality,
fights v/ith another people, does not spring from the
diversity of persons or peoples, but rather from the
fundamental identity that is realized through this
diversity. For it is evident that in the world as it
reveals itself to us v/hen v/e study it in the inv/ardness
of our own spirit—which certainly is a v/orld, and the
world in which all past wars have arisen and all future
ones will arise—identity without difference is
impossible.73

It is obvious that this philosophical thesis, provoked by

discovered that "questions like that concerning perpetual peace

are absolutely without philosophical significance", it follows
that "the -propaganda of the pacifists is one of the most naive
and quixotic ways of v/asting time" CB. 306 in B.497, pp. 4-6).
This is only a vulgar prejudice. A convinced actual idealist
could still be a pacifist. Gentile remarks that certain Hegelians
v/ere guilty of a speculative abuse (un vero abuso gnoseologico) ,
in that they confused the philosophical v/ith the empirical concept
of war, and were thus led to exalt warfare. We might fairly say
that this is just what he does himself in his criticism of
pacifism, and thus it is out of his own mouth that he is judged.
73
B.306 in B.497, pp. 6-7.
 151

the existing historical situation, exerted great influence in

Gentile's mind. It seemed to him self-evident that any situation
that could arise within consciousness must presuppose the ideal
unity of consciousness: in situations of conflict this formal
unity is transformed into a moral ideal; it is the duty of the
knowing subject to produce a unity of will in his v/orld, corres-
ponding to the abstract unity of his knowledge of it—only thus
can the knov/ledge be certified as knowledge. Since Gentile's
viev/ of reality v/as essentially moral—his whole philosophy might
be summed up by saying that consciousness of a thing implies
moral responsibility for it—he was naturally led to emphasize
the omnipresent element of conflict in human affairs, and he even
seems to have inclined to the viev/ that situations of extreme
conflict involved a higher kind of morality than other more
normal conditions.74 There is something to be said for this
view: it is a commonplace that v/ar brings out the best in people.
But nonetheless it is a terribly dangerous line of argument—for
ultimately it involves a threat to the ideal unity that is the
ground of all moral value. If v/ar brings out the best in man, it
also brings out the worst. It may strengthen the intensity of
moral resolve, but it also has a disastrously narrov/ing effect on
moral sympathies and responsibilities.75 Both strength of resolve
and breadth of sympathy are essential to the ethics of Actual

'^Hence his support of Fascist militarism and

'war-mindedness'.
' In 1914 Gentile found an ideal unity beyond the patria
in the tradition of European culture. But in 1943 he seems to
have lost sight of all the bonds uniting Italy to her enemies.
Cf. below, Chapter VIII, pp. 382-384.
 15'2

Idealism, which proclaims the immanent unity of will and

intellect. But in his eagerness: to secure the first condition,
Gentile seems to have been willing to let the second go, conten-
ting himself v/ith the formal unity of consciousness that is bound
to exist for all parties to a conflict—for in order to fight they
must be in the same world—and the assurance that the moral unity
would reassert itself eventually, when a triumphant will finally
emerged from the conflict. In this matter he betrayed his own
vision, and slipped back into a Vichian—Hegelian belief in
'Divine Providence'.

He attempts to derive normal social relations from the

b e H u m omnium contra omnes of abstract economic theory; and in
his attempt the ambiguities of a theory of society based on the
idea of simple conflict are clearly apparent.'° The initial
unity out of which the conflict springs is here the object upon
v/hich the interests of the conflicting parties converge. Because
of the convergence of another will upon an object that I v/ant,
the other appears as a power internal to my consciousness, a
power v/hich stands for the negation of 'the' will, v/hile I stand
for its affirmation. This situation occurs even within the
emotional and volitional life of a single empirical individual;
even a solitary man has conflicts of desire—he must meet and
conquer the contradiction immanent in his own will:
. . . Robinson Crusoe on his island, in the days before
he met Man Friday, was bound to realize his ov/n will

7°G-entile's argument concerning this point is extremely

condensed; v/hat is offered here is an amplification that is in
some measure conjectural.
 153

through the same process that is proper to the will

of every individual living in society: that is, l>y
negating that force opposed to the will itself in
its universal value, which is the particular or finite
moment of the will in society. Society, • therefore,
though empirically it may be the accord of individuals,
isn speculatively definable as the reality of the will
l process. So that the universal value is established
"tErough the immanent suppression of the particular
element. Society, then, is not inter homines but in
interiore homine; and it exists between men only m
virtue of th~e~~fact that all men, in respect of their
spiritual being, are one single man with a single
interest continually growing and developing: the
patrimony of humanity.77

Gentile holds that it is necessary to transform the empir-

ical observation of a conflict in the individual v/ill into a
speculative explanation of human society, because otherwise
conflict between individuals would be no more than natural
appetite; there could not be any moral action. This moral argu-
ment seems to me to be something quite different from his first
argument based on the convergence of economic interests. For
what is now implied is that unless an over-arching spiritual
unity is recognized by both parties there can be no society
between them. The physical convergence of interest, if not
completelj'- irrelevant, is at any rate quite inadequate as a foun-
dation for inter-personal relations. We should not say that the
sailor forms a society with the gale, although a conflict of will

77B.1157, pp. 75-76 (Gentile's italics). The last sentence

of this passage is very reminiscent of the famous remark in
Pascal's Fragment d'un traite du vide: "^. . . toute la suite
des hommes pendant le cours de tant de siecles, doit estre con-
sidered comme un mesme homme qui subsiste tousjours et qui
apprend continuellement . . . " (Qeuvres de Blaise Pascal, ed.
Brunschvigg and Boutroux, Paris, Hachette, Vol. II'," p'. 1*39).
Gentile v/as very interested in the history of this idea, v/hich
he traced back to Bruno—see B.275 in B.1223, pp. 331-355,
especially pp. 349-352.
 154

certainly exists between them regarding the course of the ship.

Gentile is right in saying that individuals involved in economic
conflict "feel their egoistic and repellent particularity inas-
much as they come together and encounter one another, as two
contradictory acts of judgement about an object of will that is
identical for both": but he has no right to conclude immediately
that the contradiction about the object is really "in the v/ill
itself, the one judgement standing for the affirmation and the
other for the negation".' What is internal must be felt as
internal if it is to have any meaning for an actual idealist.
In other words we cannot pass from an objective coincidence of
wills to a subjective identity of will. And hence, conflict as
such is not a social relation. Only v/hen the conflict is already,
at least ideally, overcome in an incipient cooperation (felt
identification) of wills does society begin to exist.
The basic speculative weakness of this attempt to derive
society from the economic conflict by way of the moral conscience
lies in the fact that the dialectic of morality is a dialectic
of particular and universal moments. For if this pattern of
universal opposed to particular is imposed upon all inter-personal
relations v/e can never get beyond the bellum omnium contra omnes.
It is true that the v/ill of the 'other' opposed to 'ours' will
appear to us as internal: but it v/ill not thereby become social.
On the contrary society v/ill become if anything more impossible.
If there is one situation that is less social than that of the
sailor in a gale it is that of the saint vis a vis the lusts of

78
B . H 5 7 , p. 75.
 155-

his; own flesh. St. Francis recognized a bond that bound him to
brother Fire and sister Water; but for his own body he had no
sympathy. If the relation betv/een two persons were as simple as
that between Robinson Crusoe's moral will and his particular
desires, each party would identify himself with the moral will
and his opponent v/ith the particularity: and both parties would
remain complete egoists, each seeing only the egoism of the other.
This rudimentary relationship of absolute individuals v/ould not
then constitute a society at all, despite the coincidence of
interest in a single object: for the concrete universal w i l l —
the history that actually evolved through their conflict—would
remain transcendent for both sides. The dialectic of universal
and particular will within individual consciousness can be made
the basis of the dialectic of authority and liberty in School and
State, on condition that an independent foundation is first found
for the social bond that constitutes School and State.
The fact that a positive act of will involves a conscious-
ness of what is therein negated offers no such foundation because
a relationship of persons requires that each side should recog-
nize that the other has a certain universal value that must not be
negated. The moment of conflict is certainly present in social
relations; but if society exists at all, the moment of perfect
Liniversality is an ideal above the conflict for both parties.
Sheer opposition, v/ar to the death, is the negation of society.
Gentile would undoubtedly protest at this point, that no
war is really war to the death;79 as Hegel pointed out the

Cf. for instance J3.1250, pp. 329-330.

 156

conquered enemy is not he who is killed but he who submits. We

may allow this claim. But what follows is that war is the
cradle of society, as slavery is the cradle of liberty. The
cradle and no more; and any recourse to force in human relations
is a regression towards this primitive condition, not an advance
to a higher morality—despite the increased intensity of feeling
—since the universality, the common humanity of the opponent is
denied. In war it is denied absolutely, even to his annihilation
in death.
For Actual Idealism, with its insistence on what is
actually felt, it is properly speaking, the immanent sense of
cooperation in human relations that constitutes society, not the
undeniable moment of conflict. This conflict assumes a truly
social character in so far as the conflicting parties both
concentrate on reaching agreement (an ideal universality that
neither side claims to possess already), and each recognizes the
sincerity of the other in this effort, and respects his integrity
as a person. To be valid as a foundation for human society,
therefore, the internal dialectic must be conceived as a
dialectic of persons. Gentile had already recognized this by the
time he wrote the Prolegomena to the study of the Child (1921).
Here he opposes Rousseau's view that society is an extrinsic
necessity of life irrelevant to the real business of living, v/hich
is the realization by the individual of his own nature, v/ith the
words:
But we believe in a very different sort of reality: a
reality in v/hich the individual contains society in
himself, and develops a social life v/ithin himself
originally; and that this society immanent in his
 157

spirit, is only afterwards realized progressively in

all the infinite forms of social reality, in that
system of spheres whose radius has become ever longer
throughout the history of humanity.
Each one of us, though from the outside, he may
seem absolutely isolated and possessed of a completely
. unconditioned liberty, still recognizes in his inner
consciousness, within his own 'self an 'other' to whom
he is boiind by rights and duties. When in the biblical
phrase we say "Woe to him that is alone" we ought not
to think of the man v/ho cannot establish a society with
other individuals empirically determined, but of the
one v/ho does not know how to establish bonds of com-
munity and of unity with the 'friend' and the 'judge'
v/ho lodges within him.80
A society such as this certainly has little connection with the
bellum omnium; but it is qiiestionable whether it is even yet a
true society; for v/hen he considers the nature of this internal
'other' Gentile decides that it is the not-self, the object,
everything that imposes a limit on individual liberty. It is the
past, both the individual's own personal past and the metaphysi-
cal past of nature. It is in fact pensiero pens a to. Nov/ the
dialectic of pensiero pensante and pensiero pens at o may be v/hat
constitutes personality, but it is not a dialectic of persons.
Yet that is what it must become if the 'other* in us is to be
'friend' and 'judge'. Pensiero pensato can only stand as the
objective limit of pensiero pensante if it is first given life by
pensiero pensante. The limit cannot be simply 'limit' if it is
to be felt as limiting; it must already be the road to freedom.
It must be not an ideal object but a real subject.
Gentile seems to have perceived this difficulty for he
remarks:
. . . by way of this "other", who is within us, v/e be-
come members of every other form of society. The words

B.1225, p. 73.
 158

of comfort that come to us from without, are received

as such because they are the v/ords that we have already
addressed to ourselves; and in fact we sense in them the
throb of a voice that seems to break out from the
inwardness of our own being. In the same way, when we
turn to this "other" that is within us, and speak to
him alone, pur language is universal and is universally
understood."!
All of Gentile's works from the earliest to the latest lay
stress on the coincidence of particular existence and universal
8?
meaning in the phenomenon of language. ^ For him Language is not
simply the garment in which thought is clothed; it is the bodily
substance through which it is expressed. 3 Thought must be
individualized in order to be concrete: and language is thus the
most primitive form of human personality. Yet this language
which gives concrete determination to our own thoughts and
feelings and is the ground of our possession of everything that
is most truly ours, is at the same time essentially public and
communicable. There is no secret jargon without a key.°4 our
own self-consciousness necessarily carries with it the possi-
bility of understanding others, and of their understanding us:
this is the foundation of Gentile's whole theory of reality.
He interprets all knowledge as an extension of the inner
dialectic of subject and object through which we obtain knowledge
8l
B.1225, p. 75.
82
Cf. for instance: B.70 in B.813, p. 39 and fn.; B.154
in B.1056, pp. 53-55; B.1251, pp. 56-65, 104; B.1128, pp. 19-23
(English translation, B.659, pp. 21-26); B.1250, pp. 319-322;-
B.1013 in B.1075, p. 26; and B.1288 passim.
3cf. above, Chapter III, p. 81; also the first reference
in the preceding note.
8
4B.1128, p. 22; cf. English translation (B.659),
pp. 24-25, etc.
 159

of ourselves..85 Everything known is ipso facto subjectified and

even personified. Our own past becomes an 'other'' v/ithin us;
the moral law speaks in the 'still small voice' of conscience.
But in the last analysis this subjectification of the
object does not amount to a really personal relationship. The
internal 'friend' and 'judge' is not really v/hat its title
implies: it is the "first recognition of the law" and "the
first tribunal". ° Self-consciousness, as Gentile expounds it
in this book, involves at best a partnership betv/een 'the Self
and 'the Other' (Man and God) rather than one between a self and
its own other (man and man). 8 ^ We are forced to the conclusion

05
The way in v/hich, in the Prolegomena to the Study of the
Child, Gentile equates the internal 'other* of consciousness, with
the metaphysical object of thought throws light on the passage in
the second volume of the Logic in v/hich he speaks of Nature being
personified and uttering "the great v/ord 'I'" (B.1250, pp. 19-21;
cf. Holmes, The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile, New York, Macmillan,
1937, pp. 79, 169 for a translation of the relevant passages).
Prof. Holmes objects to this passage as "sheer fancy" (op_. cit. ,
p. 170); and he uses it as a key passage in his indictment of the
Ego which he wishes to see banished from Actual Idealism. But if
he had carefully considered that the "act of thinking" is only one
aspect of Gentile's dialectic, and that it becomes determinate
through the object thought (its own past), he v/ould have realized
why Gentile insists that reality is personal. Gentile says that
Nature answers thought by saying "I am Nature", in order to indi-
cate that the only "Nature" that can be known is that which
becomes part of the personality of the knov/er. "It is a law . . .
of the knowledge of spiritual reality that the object be resolved
in the subject" (B.1279, p. 14; cf. English translation, B.660,
p. 10). Through this resolution the person is constituted; thus
the person is not—as Holmes seems to fear—a presupposed ghost,
but it is just as essential to Gentile's doctrine as the act of
thinking of which it forms the object.
86
B.1225, p. 75.
'It is interesting to compare G. H. Mead's theory of the
"generalized other" as a constitutive element of the self (see
Mind Self and Society, University of Chicago Press, 1934) v/ith
Gentile' s "theory in the Prolegomena. Nor is this the only point
at v/hich a comparison of their views is instructive. Mead's
 160

that he has not yet produced an adequate theory of society in

interiore nomine: it is still only the moment of authority—Law
8
or the State—whose internal character has been demonstrated.
In the second volume of the Logic (1922) Gentile does seem
to have attained for a moment to a really 'personal' conception
of the internal dialectic:
. . . man in solitude holds a dialogue with himself; he
creates his own other v/ithin himself; and he labours in
the secret colloquy with the interlocutor that he has
made for himself in the abstract solitude of his own
particular v/orld, in a drama identical with the one
in which every one of us is enmeshed as a particular
being engaged in the actual business of living together
with the v/hole world that is ours. He has no less need
to come to terms v/ith this secret interlocutor, con-
quering him or yielding to him or subjecting himself
to him; and in him he finds now a satanic tempter, now
a mentor austere or gentle, now a criminal or a judge,
and in general an associate.89
In his earlier discussions it is almost alv/ays possible to
identify the 'other' within the self with one or other of the
moments of the dialectic. It is the enemy, the particular
moment (as in "The Philosophy of the War" and the Philosophy of
Law) or the Judge, the Object, God, the universal moment (as in
the Prolegomena to the Study of the Child). The one exception
hitherto has been the reference in this latter work to the 'other'
as 'friend'; and even this seems to pass over vevy easily into

theory of 'play' and 'the game', for instance, could be adopted by

an actual idealist almost unchanged.
88
Gentile does not appear to have distinguished clearly
between the problem of community and the problem of authority.
In "The Idea of Monarchy" he sums up his v/hole theory of society
l n interiore homine as a theory of the State in interiore homine.
But ""it seems to me that there are two distinguishable problems
involved (cf. B.504 in B.561, pp. 154-157).
89
B.1250, p. 110.
 161

the notion of a 'Divine Friend'—"the Holy Ghost, the Comforter"

so to speak. But here in this passage from the Logic this
reduction is not possible; the variety of roles assigned to the
'other' makes it clear that we are dealing with a really personal
entity, a determinate product of the dialectic, something that is
both particular and universal simultaneously. And the last v/ords
in the passage quoted (e_ in generale un socio) are definitely
prophetic of the doctrine of the socius elaborated twenty years
later in The Genesis and Structure of Society. But in their
context these few brief sentences are only intended as a criti-
cism of the classical ideal of the rational soul at peace v/ith
itself in contemplation of the truth. Gentile is simply seeking
to show that the nature of reason precludes all possibility of
rest; he is not concerned to make this argument a metaphysical
ground for anything. And although later in the same work he does
remark that empirical society depends ultimately on man's ability
to understand his ov/n thoughts v/hen he "converses v/ith himself
and discourses mentally",°° this is an argument v/hich we have
already found in several of his other works, and it is by no
means clear thab it is yet connected in Gentile's mind v/ith the
internal dialogue of self and socius. Taken as a v/hole, bhe
second volume of the Logic is thoroughly pervaded with the
religious spirit, the sense of the Other, God, Truth, the Law,
the Universal; and it v/as not until he wrote the Genesis and
Structure of Society that he systematically developed the
implications of the "transcendental dialogue". Only then did he

90
B.1250, p. 320.
 162

give an adequate account of society in interiore homine.JJ-

6. The "Philosophy of Law" (iii): The Theory of Force and Law.

The arguments that Gentile offers in explanation of the
concept of society in interiore homine in his earlier works have
at least this value: they indicate fairly clearly what he meant
by saying that the State was internal. And there is no question
that they do provide a firm metaphysical basis for the moment of
authority v/hich according to Gentile is omnipresent in human
society. There is no form of social relation without an over-
riding will which is sovereign. "Even the school," says Gentile
who can never forget the school for long, "is a spiritual
association, and involves the master who must give rules for his
pupils."92 Similarly the family acts as a unit through the will
of the father. Even in social situations such as friendship,
v/here authority is not personified it is not absent; for in all
situations authority depends upon inner recognition and not on
overt assertion:
. , . the superior directing will . . . becomes endowed
with its proper superiority, not through a mechanical
force that operates from without upon the wills subjected
to it, but through the respect (in the widest sense of
the term) of v/hich it appears worthy, and through the
intrinsic value that is attributed to it. It is not the
master who by his authority gets the truth accepted, but
the truth v/hich confers authority on the master. And
the ipse dixit is not born ex abrupto; it presupposes
a long established and well v/arranted experience of the
master's great familiarity with the secrets of knowledge.
In any case, whatever degree of rationality the
considerations that induce us to recognize an authority

^ liy v/hich time he appears to have forgotten this single

isolated passage in his earlier work (cf. B.1288, Avvertenza).
92
B.1157, p. 76.
 163

may possess, the authority is only real in virtue of

our recognition; and all the speculations, in which
philosophers have attempted to base the power of the
laws to v/hich our will is subjected on an authority
superior to our will, have alv/ays been vain logomachies.
For it is quite clear that, however exalted this
authority may be, it can never be exalted unless.we
have ourselves exalted it. The v/ord authority is
identical in meaning v/ith law: identical, that is,
v/ith the fundamental lav/, "tFe law that is absolute.93
Our membership of any social organism depends ultimately on
our acceptance of the sovereign will that gives it organic form.
From this acceptance springs our obedience to particular deter-
minations of the sovereign v/ill in positive laws, and, at the
same time, our recognition that these positive laws may be
changed. For although it is true that the sovereign will is not
a thing numerically distinct from its particular determinations,
it is also true that these determinations are never absolute: the
law-giving power is inseparable from the lav/s that it gives; but
these laws are not given once for all—thes*- are alv/ays dependent
on the sustaining will of the sovereign power, which is identical
v/ith the moral conscience of the subject v/ho recognizes his duty
in its dictates.
Just as, when he established that education consisted in the
substantial unity of v/ill v/hich binds together teacher and pupil,
Gentile was faced v/ith the problem of disobedience and ptmishment,

-°B.1157, p. 77. The passage "Comunque, quale che sia il

grado di razionalita delle considerazioni che c'inducono a rico-
noscere un'autorita, questa e reale in forza del nostro riconos-
cimento . . ." (In any case, whatever degree of rationality the
considerations that induce us to recognize an authority may
possess, the authority is only real in virtue of our recog-
nition . . .) points forward to the much discussed remark about
the blackjack as a means of persuasion in Che cosa £ il fascismo.
"(See below, Chapter VI, pp. 244-246).
 164

so now that he has declared that the sovereign will of the State
is identical with the inner conscience of the citizen, he has to
deal v/ith the problem presented by the existence of an undeniable
and seemingly irreducible element of compulsion in human
society."4 jje poses the problem in its most extreme form, by
admitting that Spinoza v/as right—from the point of view of a
strict naturalism—in positing force as the basis of legal right;
while at the same time Rousseau v/as equally right in defending
the ideal character of law as something distinct from and opposed
to brute physical compulsion. This antinomy of legal compulsion
arises, says Gentile, because 'force' can be considered from two
quite opposite points of view. Spinoza looks at it from within,
i.e. from the point of view of the agent who employs it: v/hile
Rousseau looks at it from without, from the point of viev/ of the
patient against whom it is employed:
The force of one who acts is the affirmation of the
spirit, its realization; while the force of one who
suffers (the force that he feels that he is suffering)
is the negation or suppression of spiritual reality.
The first indeed generates the second, but only by
positing two absolutely different spiritual situations,
one of which is the actual creation of spiritual value,
and the other of spiritual disvalue. Now, when Spinoza
attributes to every individual (we should say, to the
spirit) the ius summum ad omnia quae potest £supreme
right to everything witHTn its powerJ"j he is thinking
of force in the first sense, the sense in which it is
creative of value; Rousseau, on the other hand, in
denying that force can generate any value, clearly has
the second sense of the word in mind.95

Thus each side is justified in its own terms: ultimately,

however, it is Rousseau and the idealists v/ho are nearer to the

94B.1157, Chapter V, pp. 80-86.

95ii3icl., p. 82.
 165

real truth of the matter. Thrasymachus is justified in speaking

of the might v/hich is right and the right v/hich is might, but he
is wrong v/hen his position is compared v/ith that of Socrates since
he does not understand the development which properly belongs to
the 'might' of which he speaks. For the might which constitutes
right is not simply a natural fact, completely determined and
particular, but a spiritual striving towards universality. "Hegel
and Jhering have shown clearly, as Vico had done earlier, how
slavery—the institution that typifies the 'lav/ of the stronger'—
is the cradle of liberty."9° Thus the ideal point of view can
only be considered superior because, and just so long as, it
recognizes and does justice to the element of truth contained in
naturalism; it v/as Rousseau, after all, v/ho recommended the
employment of force in dealing with children and reason only with
adiilts. The important question concerning the use of force in any
actual historical situation is whether it serves a real educa-
tional purpose: and this means that, the lav/ immanent in the
force employed must eventually become an authority internal to
the consciousness of the person subjected to it.97 Indeed,
strictly speaking, "external forces, inasmuch as they are exter-
nal, have no value for the spirit, that is they do not act or
exist as forces". 98 Any force has to be translated into pain, the
inner consciousness of spiritual non-being, before it can possess

96
B.1157, PP. 82-83.
97
ibid. , pp. 84-85. Gentile refers the reader at this point
to the first volume of his Educational Theory, especially Part II,
Chapter IV (B.1251, pp. 124-131;.
98
ibid., p. 85.
 166

coercive power.
This use of his metaphysical theory of pain in justification
of coercion is the very v/orst example of the tendency to explain
av/ay unpleasant realities in the whole of Gentile's systematic
thought. One might go so far as to say that it is entirely
specious. It amounts almost to a denial of that superiority of
the 'ideal' viewpoint that was just previously asserted. For
when Rousseau and the rest attacked the viev/ that might is right,
they meant physical coercion in the form of some involuntary
restraint or pain. They thought of force as something foreign
to the will, not as external to consciousness or purely factual.
The doctrine that even the most brutal of brute forces must be-
come internal in the sense of being consciously recognized by the
spirit as its own negation, is therefore no soPution to the
antinomy, since the opposed schools of thought v/oiild both agree
about it, without altering their positions.
Francesco De Sarlo claims that, in his account of pleasure
and pain, Gentile confuses the fact of pain as an event of con-
scious life, v/ith the interpretation of the fact in an ethical
and teleological conception of the universe.9" Like most of his
criticisms, this complaint rests largely on a complete misunder-
standing—even, one might say, a wilful refusal to understand.
For Gentile, the 'fact' of pain—like any other "fact'—is an
abstraction; hence one cannot treat a "determination of the
spiritual life" as a mere "factual datum" as De Sarlo does. In
the "determinazione della vita spirituale" the objectivity of the

99G-entile e Croce, Florence, Le Monnier, 1925, pp. 158-159.

 167

"dato di fatto", its immediacy, its 'given-ness' is already

resolved into the will of the subject—the fact of pain is con-
cretely inseparable from its moral significance for the sufferer:
the reality of which he is conscious is the fact in the total
context of its interpretation. Thus any kind of pain which is
voluntarily accejoted is satisfactorily explained even as a 'fact'
by Gentile's ethical and teleological interpretation.
There is some truth in De Sarlo's complaint, hov/ever, where
physical pain is in question. In our original discussion of
Gentile's theory of pleasure and pain, v/e pointed out, that his
doctrine cannot legitimately be applied to purely physical pain.
Since his justification of physical compulsion rests finally on
the assumption that his theory of pain can be universally applied
v/e are bound to conclude that the v/hole argument is invalid.
Unlike grief, physical pain is not voluntarily accepted: the
attitude of the will towards it is entirely negative; it remains
simply a natural fact, to be removed if its removal proves to be
feasible, or, if not, to be suffered as calmly as possible until
an opportuni by of escape occurs.-*-00 Never, except in the last
resort is it accepted v/ith resignation—only 'what can't be cured
must be endured'.
Physical coercion therefore can scarcely be a relation
between tv/o persons. It is a relation between a single conscious

lOO^ven here it is not strictly accurate to oppose the

'fact' to the 'interpretation'. The distinction of the fact as
'simply a nabural fact' takes place within the interpretation
(which is still the total or concrete reality); v/ithin this
interpretation the fact is opposed to—instead of being identified
with—the will of the conscious interpreting subject.
 168

spirit and a blind natural force. One might argue that Gentile
recognized this, for he did point out that the spiritual situation
of a person suffering violence or coercion is quite different
from that of the person who inflicts the violence. But in fact
this admission betrays the weakness of his speculative position.
For in using force rather than reason, the agent demonstrates
his conviction that only his will is of any value: the patient
is a mere natural obstacle to be subdued, not a person deserving
of moral respect. While for the patient the action represents
simply the non-being of his own spiritual activity, a problem, or
an obstacle to be removed. Yet each party is aware of the other
as a person, and not simply as a natural obstacle to his own
self-realization: and, as Gentile himself said in discussing the
relation of parents to an unborn child, as soon as v/e recognize
any being as human v/e are linked to it by moral ties.101 Hence
the two situations—which are indeed "absolutely different" when
considered in the abstract, that is from a strictly egoistic
point of view—are really elements of a single spiritual v/hole.
Strictly from the agent's point of view, an action may
appear rational; but if the agent recognizes the patient as a
person at all, he is bound to be aware, that it does not appear
so to him. Since this consciousness forms part of the total act,
the act considered 'in itself (i.e. simply from the point of
viev/ of the agent) is a mere abstraction. In recognizing the
patient as a person, the agent is logically bound to recognize at
the same time a moral obligation to come to an agreement v/ith him

B.718 in B.1056, p. 92; cf. above, p. 122.

 169

about the nature and value of any act in v/hich' they may both be
involved. The moment of compulsion is the negative moment of the
dialectic, the moment of multiplicity and opposition, and this
opposition can find its meaning only in the synthesis. Hence the
justification of any act involving compulsion or violence, as all
actions do in some degree, must lie more in the mind of the
patient than in that of the agent—even as the process of educa-
tion centres in the consciousness of the pupil, not in that of
the master.
So, then, Gentile's distinction of the aspects of 'force'
does not possess any moral or metaphysical value whatever; and
to suppose that it does, is to reduce Actual Idealism to an
amoral solipsism of the crudest variety. The separation of 'my'
act from the action as it appears to those who 'suffer' it, is,
in reality, only a refined form of the distinction betv/een
'intention' and 'result1, which v/as deservedly condemned when it
v/as employed by certain Jesuit casuists. In common parlance the
tendency to separate these tv/o aspects of a single indivisible
v/hole is called hypocrisy; and if I have rightly understood the
ethical significance of Gentile's philosophy, hypocrisy, in his
system, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.
This dangerous, and indeed disastrous tendency is
fortunately not the only one that is apparent in Gentile's
theory of coercive action. Just as in his account of school
discipline there v/ere two distinguishable lines of thought, one
of which was more truly accordant v/ith the general spirit of
 170

Actual Idealism than the other, ° 2 so here in his theory of legal

coercion there are tv/o comparable strands. For alongside his
attempt to demonstrate that all force is fundamentally spiritual
in character, which corresponds to his insistence that the author-
ity of the master must be maintained, since even tyranny does
not really suppress liberty, and to his justification of punish-
ment as the "right of the future", there is his insistence that
force must evolve into reason and that the law immanent in com-
pulsion should become the conscious will of the person subjected
to it, which corresponds to his declaration that the real meaning
of punishment lies in the pupil's sense of the dissidio between
himself and the teacher. From this latter point of viev/ Might
is never Right until it ceases to be regarded as Might: and the
employment of physical force for a moral purpose must therefore
involve an act of faith. Unless the faith' is justified the
morality of the act will remain merely subjective and abstract.
There is no way out of this dilemma. The action of a criminal
court in sentencing a criminal is actually moral precisely in so
far as the judge and criminal eventually agree in their hearts
that the sentence is or v/as deserved. The spiritual reality of
all coercion lies in repentance -J and an active change ot heart,
which is not simply a change of outward behaviour, though it
can only receive concrete expression through such a change. The
coercive power of the lav/ is intended to procure such an inward
change: how such a change should be procured is a vitally

102
B.1252, pp. 49-56; cf. above, p. 135 f.
103
Cf. B.98 (Spaventa, Principi di etica), pp. 106-114.
 171

important moral problem, not a merely empirical question of what

is practicable or politically expedient, as Gentile seems to
have assumed. 4

7. The "philosophy of Law" (iv): Lav/ and Morality.

Having dealt v/ith the problem of legal coercion, Gentile
comes finally to the question of how positive law is related to
the moral law. He finds his ansv/er, as v/e might expect, in the
by now familiar distinction between 'act' and 'fact1, pensiero
pensante and pensiero pensato. Positive law falls naturally
enough into the category of pensiero pensato; it is the objective
content of the moral v/ill, its past. The actual moral will
(pensiero pensante) is a synthetic union of self-consciousness
with consciousness, "Will as actual willing, and Will as object
willed (volere come volere e volere come voluto)."105 Hence the
law has tv/o aspects, depending on whether it is considered as a
term v/ithin this unity (i.e. as 'consciousness') or in abstrac-
tion (as potential consciousness, or a mere content of conscious-
ness). Considered in its concrete actuality (i.e. within the
synthesis) it is internal to the will of the citizen; hut it can
be separated from the will, and considered abstractly in itself;
indeed, if this analysis and abstraction did not take place in

4^e o^aii have more to say about the moral problems in-
volved here, in dealing with Gentile's apologia for the Fascist
squadristi. For the present it must suffice to say that any
attempt to make metaphysical capital out of such coimaonplaces as
the observation that coercion is an internal spiritual reality
becau.se it is the infliction of pain, is totally irrelevant.
(Cf. further Chapter VI, pp. 240-246 and Chapter IX).
1C)
5B.1157, p. 87 (Gentile's italics).
 172

ordinary experience, there could be no development, and we should

not be able to talk of the will at all—for there would be
nothing in the world except mechanical instinct. Through this
process of abstraction we can free ourselves from the burden of
the past and continually reassert our freedom.
At this point, a serious problem arises which must be
resolved. For we have already seen how Gentile used this same
distinction of pensante and pensato to elucidate the problem of
good and evil. 1 0 6 He argued then that evil is the metaphysical
past of the good act—the abstract content of the purifying con-
sciousness which judges and so 'overcomes' it. Now he has
identified positive lav/ with pensiero pensato, the content of
moral consciousness. Since he certainly does not mean to imply
that 'law' considered abstractly, is identical v/ith 'evil', we
must obviously examine more carefully the nature of pensiero
pensato.
Gentile expounds his doctrine thus:
The separation of the object willed fil_ voluto] from
the act of willing til volere1, manifestly transforms
the object of present will CI'attuale volutoJ into an
object of past will [il gia voluto 1 but v/ithout thereby
withdrawing it from the dialectic of the will. If the
object willed were thus withdrawn it is clear that it
would become a nullity Candrebbe nel nulla3, since
the dialectic of the spirit exhausts all being; and
to go completely outside the circle of this dialec-
tic must mean annihilation. But the object willed is
not annihilated; and it is not annihilated because it
is spirit, even if it is only a negative form. It is
not annulled, but simply negated; and therefore
conserved in its negativity.107

l° 6 Cf. above, pp. 142 ff.

107B.1157, p. 88; cf. B.98 (Spaventa, Principi di etica),
p. 114.
 173

II gia voluto would seem to be identified here v/ith the absolute

Object recognized in the religious moment of spiritual develop-
ment, and v/ith the 'Other' involved in the transcendental
society. 0° It is past and complete but it is not dead (evil).
It is a negative form of the spirit because its life, its
spiritLial reality, consists in being continually negated as an
object in order to be preserved in the subject:
I will a; and I am a; but if I did not will some-
thing else, I should noT v/ill any longer; hence l should
not be a, for I am a only while I will to be a. Hence
to have willed a [voler gia a3, involves willing a', a",
a"1 etc.; and v/iTling a' means no longer willing a~T"which
v/ould involve not willing a' ) ; and if I am to wiTl a",
I cannot any longer will a_*_," and so on. In short,
willing something involves unwilling it [^disvolerlo] ,
by willing an object that contains the first will-ohject
[yoluto3 but in a higher form, in which it is to go on
realizing itself ever more completely through the
dialectic.109
In order to understand this doctrine v/e must remember that
Gentile is never concerned about any object external to con-
sciousness: and he is alv/ays emphasizing that "Spirit" (Con-
sciousness) and "Being" are irreconcilable ideas. A simple
contemplation that rests in its object is impossible: conscious-
ness is activity. Hence when the purpose of a volitional act is
achieved and the process of actual willing is complete, the
object in which the satisfied will rests can only continue to

108\7e mean here the transcendental society as expounded in

the Philosophy of Law and other writings of this period. We have
seen reason bo" doubt whether society can be founded on the
relation of pure dialectical moments (such as il gia voluto).
The 'other' v/ho is socius in the Genesis and Structure of Society
I s a person: it cannot and must not be identified with il gicl
voluto or any other pure category.
109B.1157, p. 88.
 174

possess spiritual value in virtue of a new volition for its active

preservation and defence.
It is easy to see therefore that Father Chiocchetti's sum-
ming up of Gentile's theory of evil: "Evil is what I thought
(or v/illed) last year, yesterday, a moment ago! " H O is only a
travesty of Gentile's meaning; and Croce's criticism which
Chiocchetti cites in support of his ov/n view, really expresses
Gentile's own opinion:
The pastI But when I (or anyone else) examine the
propositions I have uttered in the past, I distinguish
quite clearlj'' those of them which v/ere thoughts, poor
thoughts, hut now revived and enriched in new thought,
from those that v/ere not thoughts, but mere sounds
without meaning, or at least without precise meaning,
suggested or imposed on me by the practical situations
in v/hich I found myself. And I feel pleased v/ith my-
self about the former, v/hile for the latter I blush . . .
And so likewise, among my past actions, 1 distinguish
those which pass calmly before the eye of conscience,
from those others that disturb me as evils that must
be amended . . . H I
Gentile himself drav/s this same distinction quite clearly,
though in somewhat more metaphysical language. It is the whole
point of the distinction between the object which is negated and
that v/hich is annulled. Thus considered simply as past, v/hat
the spirit has already v/illed is not law, the force that is free-
dom, but something that may become law, a force that denies
freedom. in action that is only outward obedience to the lav/,
the lav/ itself represents merely the limit of the freedom that
belongs essentially to the act: and so long as it appears

HOEmilio Chiocchetti, .La filosofia di Giovanni Gentile,

Milan, "Vita e pensiero", 1922, p. 297.
Ill
Conversazioni critiche, II, p. 76.
 175

simply as a limit v/e are aware of it merely as force. Only when

we recognize it as a necessary condition of our present freedom
does it gain moral and spiritual value. Similarly, when we
consider our own personal past, whatever v/e approve of as right
or good becomes ipso facto a standard to which our present
thought and action must conform. The philosophy of lav/ therefore
is an aspect of moral philosophy and the tv/o are concretely
identical: Law is the past of morality, but it is the past of
the present, the living content which gives to the present its
determinate individuality. The past is, in the Hegelian phrase,
aufgehoben; as particular (evil), it is cancelled, but as uni-
versal (lav/), it is preserved.
The dialectic of the spiritual act, therefore, does not
involve merely the non-being of the spirit (evil), but
also that being, without v/hich the self-positing in
v/hich the spiritual act consists, v/ould not be possible.H 2
Given the concrete identity of law and moral freedom
(autonomy) i t is obvioiis that the traditional opposition betv/een
lex and ius cannot be admitted. It is an abstract antithesis
that originates in that first moment of the dialectic when the
lav/ i s not really law at all but sheer force. Human 'rights'
are the correlative of the duty imposed by the internal law.
The 'subjective' right of a creditor exists inasmuch as there
is an 'objective' right (a law) v/hich obliges the debtor to pay
him what is owing. The universal force of this objective right
is, according to Gentile, the only spiritual realityll^—for in

H213.1157, pp. 90-91.

11
^For a criticism of this view see below, p. 180 (fn. 119).
 176

it debtor and creditor are one; their 'right' is completely iden-

tical. That is why consciousness of a subjective right is
unimportant. A man has rights quite regardless of whether he
avails himself of them or not.
Another difficulty that vanishes in the face of this
concrete unity is that of the princeps legibus solutus. For legal
coercion is not the activity of an independent sovereign power
upon its subjects; it is the moral experience of the subjects
operating in and upon their present wills. There is no question
of the sovereign being beyond the coercive power of the law while
the subjects are not: the sovereign power (volere come voluto)
is sovereign only in virtue of recognition by the subjects (volere
come volere) — "v/e know that the true sovereign in the world of
politics is no more external or opposed to the subject, than the
master is to the pupil in the schoolroom; the sovereign is
internal, it is man himself."114 ideally, the coercive pov/er of
the lav/ has nothing to do v/ith the existence of empirical sanc-
tions or guarantees, though there is a natural tendency to
buttress anything recognized as law in such a way that it will
command respect and obedience. The real 'sanction' of the lav/
is the respect that it commands when it appears to us simply as
law, that is, as a product of v/ill (un voluto) that is not our
actual activity of willing, but forms the proper content of our
will.
Gentile holds that, v/hen once this inward ideal character
of law has been recognized, any attempt to distinguish the private

H4j3.1157, p. 93.
life of the person from the public life of the citizen is fore-
doomed to failure. He considers that the best argument in
defence of this distinction, is that of Spinoza:
. . . nemo ius suum naturale, sive facultatem suam
libere ratiocinandi, et de rebus quibuscunque iudi-
candi, in alium transferre, neque ad id cogi potest.
Hinc ergo fit, ut illud imperium violentum habeatur,
quod in animos est, et ut summa maiestas iniuriam
subditis facere, eonunque ius usurpare videatur, quando
unicuique praescribere vult, quid tanquam verum amplecti
et tanquam falsum reicere, et quibus porro opinionibus
uniuscuiusque animus erga Beum devotione moveri debeat;
haec enim uniuscuiusque iuris sunt, quo nemo etsi velit,
cedere potest.
£. . . n o one can transfer to another his natural right,
or his faculty of reasoning freely and of judging aboiit
any matters, nor can he be compelled to do this. Hence
it is, that the exercise of authority over mens' minds
is regarded as violence, and that the highest majesty
appears to do wrong to its subjects and to usurp their
right, v/hen it wishes to prescribe to each, v/hat is to
be embraced as truth and what rejected as falsehood,
and even by v/hat opinions the mind of each individual
is to be swayed in his devotion to God; for these
questions belong to the right of every man. which no
man can surrender even if he wishes to.] 115
But this argument, he goes on, falls before the reply of St.
Augustine:
Melius est quidem (quis dubitaverit?) ad DeLim co-
lendum doctrina homines duci, quam poenae timore vel
dolore compelli. Sed non quia isti meliores sunt,
ideo illi qui tales non sunt, negligendi sunt.
Multis enim profuit (quod experimentis probavimus et
probamus) prius timore vel dolore cogi, ut postea
possent doceri, aut qiiod iam verbis didicerant,
op ere sec tari.
tit is better indeed (v/ho v/ould doubt it?) that men
should be led to God's service by teaching, than that
they should be driven to it by the fear or the actual
pain of a penalty. But the fact that the better sort
follow the better way is no reason for neglecting those
who are incapable of it. For it has profited many
(as we have found and are finding in practice) to be

-L-L;>Tractatus theologico-politicus, Cap. 20; cf. B.1157,

pp. 95-96 fn.
 178

driven first by fear or actual pain, in order that

they may later be taught, or may translate into deeds
what they have already learnt in words .j H 6
In siding thus v/ith Augustine, Gentile once again leans far
too heavily on his metaphysical explanation of pain. Only when
an individual feels that his existence as a person is being
respected, is there any hope that he v/ill learn his lesson even
under compulsion. If he feels that his personality is being
violated, the force will appear to him simply as evil (the 'past'
that is a natural obstacle to be annulled) and not" as lav/ (the
'past' that is deserving of moral respect;. He will then submit
outwardly until he gains courage to assert his moral character
in political rebellion or social revolution; but he v/ill never
learn. In view of the fundamental importance of conscious
mediation in Gentile's writings and his view that thought is
always free and self-critical, Spinoza's position seems far more
consonant with the true spirit of Actual Idealism than the
strictly religious viev/ of St. Augustine on this point unless
tremendous stress is laid on the words ut postea possent doceri:
and if we lay stress on this point the two views are much nearer
to one another than u-entile appears to imagine.H7

-L-Lbl)e correctione Donatistarum, (Epistle 185J, cap. VI;

cf. B.1157, p. 96 In.
'Here for once Gentile's fascist practice was better than
his pre-Fascist theory: he declared in the Senate in 1926 that
an intellectual dictatorship was a "controsenso", and that in the
field of thought there is no life without liberty and autonomy.
This is just a moralized version of Spinoza's more neutral state-
ment (B.877 in B.937, pp. 130-131; cf. below, Chapter VI, p. 254).
In the later years of the Fascist Regime he often protested that
an undue emphasis on discipline and the religious attitude typi-
fied by St. Augustine's argument v/oiild lead to merely formal
obedience and internal rottenness. The absolute freedom of
 179

One final problem remains for a philosophy that identifies

law with morality: that of legal injustice. Gentile deals v/ith
this problem while summing up his doctrine. Law, he concludes
is "Nature in the v/orld of the will." In its concrete reality
within that world it coincides with morality, and the philosophy
of law is, therefore, indistinguishable from philosophy pure and
simple. The law abstractly is simply T O EWKOCCOM : but concretely
it is Swvtoctov €JULV^^OV, the moral personality of the judge.H°
Positive law in its objective determination is subjected to
continual amendment. The limiting case of law arises in this
process of moral judgement—the unjust law. Here the moral being
of the Spirit passes over into its non-being (evil). The lav/
must be abrogated. But until it is abrogated by due process of
law it must be obeyed. For the need for its abrogation arises in
virtue of its inconsistency with the higher moral law that binds
the citizen to his community and this higher moral lav/ must be
preserved:
. . . inasmuch as the unjust lav/, as long as it is not
yet abrogated, is the will of that State v/hich is
immanent in the citizen, its injustice is not wholly
injustice. Rather we may call it a justice in fieri,
v/hich will mature little by little to the point when
the law itself is abrogated. And the citizen who
obeys it, despite his recognition of its injustice,
does not really obey that law, but a higher law that

thought which is essential to his theory gives a new significance

to the problem of the princeps legibus solutus. For man as a
moral philosopher (and that means every man who is faced with a
moral problem) is literally legibus solutus: his decision creates
the law that he obeys. Thus he is at once bound and not bound by
the law. Gentile has not abolished the antinomy, but rather
exacerbated it by substituting an internal relation for the
traditional external empirical one.
B.1157, pp. 97-101; cf. above, p. 130.
 180

is just, of which the iinjust law is a particular detail

tEat can only be corrected if the higher law is observed,
as Plato demonstrates in the Crito.119

8. The Theory of Monarchy.

In an essay written shortly after the First World War
Gentile considered the problem of hov/ this higher law can best be
determined in a system of Government: that is, the classical
problem of the ideal constitution.!^ He admits at the
beginning, hov/ever, that there is no ideal constitution. The
polity is an expression of a particular historical tradition and
evolution on the part of a community. It seems therefore that
v/e should take the argument that he goes on to advance rather as
a philosophical explanation of the value of the political tradi-
tion of the Italian kingdom, than as a criticism of other consti-
tutions v/hich have a different tradition behind them. But the
arguments Gentile uses are a priori in nature, and derived from
his general speculative theory: so that they do represent
criteria applicable to any situation, and v/e can say that although
there is no perfect constitution, there are at least .certain

1
!9jj>ii57j p. 102. Antonio v/as therefore morally obliged to
honour his immoral bond: but was Shylock morally justified in
insisting on his legal right, let alone morally obliged to insist
on it?
Or again: it has been observed that where trial by jury
exists, a jury v/ill tend to acquit rather than condemn an accused
person, even though they are convinced of his guilt, if the
penalty appointed by law appears unduly severe. Is such evasion
necessarily immoral? It appears to me that Gentile goes too far
in his insistence that 'objective' right is all that counts.
'Subjective' righb plays an important part in the dialectic of
legal history. It has a real, though negative, spiritual
influence—v/hich is exerted through a deliberate refusal to
exercise it.
i20
B.504 in B.561, pp. 147-161.
" • - • • - • • . , , . , ... i . .
 181

ideals which should guide all sound constitutional development.

No State for instance, however autocratic, could endure
v/ithout the consent of the governed. The good State is the one
which expresses the will of its citizens—though in theory it may
be anything from a democracy to a tyranny. It is the authority
that appears to us as the universality of our own moral will.
The constitution of the State, therefore, is the moment of
passage, the point at which the moral law passes over into
positive lav/; and since v/e are none of us moral without a
struggle, it presents itself in a double aspect: on the one hand
it is something that ought to be (law, authority, oiir duty) ; and
on the other hand it is something that actually is (autonomy,
freedom, our right). If the State did not at first appear to us
as a transcendent power, v/e could not be free moral beings, for
we could not exert our freedom in order to become moral. "The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom"; the State repre-
sents, as it v/ere, the religious moment of the cosmic process of
education: and so v/e come round to the antithesis of the thesis
with which v/e began. For just as no government, however tyran-
nical, can exist without consent (^liberty) , so no government,
however democratic or libertarian, can exist v/ithout force
(authority): and since this religious moment is an eternal and
necessary moment of the dialectic, the distinction between govern-
ment and governed, sovereign and people will always exist in any
political situation. The classless society is an illusion:
To say 'State*, is to say 'Law' or 'Authority'. And
authority cannot but present itself originally as a
limit to liberty, precisely in order that liberty may
be able to express itself in its full concrete infinity.
 182

And all authorities based on election presuppose an

authority that legitimates the election.121
This fundamental authority must have a determinate
existence of some kind in any sound constitution, because it is
an essential moment of the spirit, which ought to be explicitly
realized. But the only sort of existence that is determinate yet
spiritual is personal existence. The existence of authority,
even as a limit, must already contain the possibility of its own
overcoming. For all authority is properly internal; it is an
activity of self-limitation, and its final destiny is to be
recognized as such and become identified with the liberty of the
subject.
Thus there is the activity that posits the limit, the
limiting activity ["!' attivita limite3; and there is
the activity that is faced with the limit, and recog-
nizes it as its ov/n -limit: the limited activity
Cl* attivita limitata ] . There is the free popular v/ill
that creates, maintains, and guards the State, and
there is the v/ill that fulfils and resolves its own
liberty in the recognition of the State that it has
itself created. Without this circle of the will, at
once the beginning and the end of political reality,
this reality becomes quite inconceivable to us moderns,
conscious of the completely spiritual nature of the
State, ana of the22
consequent necessity of its immanence
in the spirit.I

The personality of the State cannot be something v/hole and

complete therefore: for it is not the free activity of the will
that presupposes the limit, but the limit v/hich presupposes the
free activity. It is for this reason that the representative of
the State should rightly be a specific, limited human

X
^-LB.504 in B.561, p. 157.
122
ibid., p. 158.
 183

person.^23 The King represents tradition, but not in a deter-

minate and dogmatic form. He is, by reason of his own personal
limitations a living proof of the right of further progress. His
v/ill is thus the 'natural' root of the State—a firm and abiding
point of reference throughout all the changes and vicissitudes
of the popular will in its history.
Constitutionality, as Kant observed, makes a monarchy
resemble a republic; but its hereditary character with-
draws the monarchic regime from the vast, infinite
field over which it is right that the liberty of the
popular will should" range and come to fulfilment, making
of the State in its original nucleus, an antecedent of
liberty, and a secure guarantee of its every possible
experiment. The hereditary character of the supreme
power in the State introduces an almost natural element
Cquasi un elemento naturalej into the circle of
political will . . .124
The phrase quasi un elemento naturale should remind us of
the ambiguous character of the bona that binds the family to-
gether: 12 ^ and this recollection will prepare us for what follows.
The authority of the monarchy, Gentile goes on, can only have a
'natural' value if the nature is our own, and is recognized—
that is, felt—as such: exactly as v/ith the family bond it is
the feeling that creates the bond and only the relatively imme-
diate quality of this feeling that gives it the. apparent immuta-
bility of a lav/ of nature.

J
It is very important to understand the argument leading
to this conclusion, if we v/ish to comprehend why Gentile acted as
he did when faced with the Armistice in 1943. It is because the
limit is not something complete and absolute, but a product of
free activity that it should properly be a human person. But
equally because it is not absolute it may be renounced. Thus bhe
ground of Gentile's monarchism is also the ground of his right
to reject the King's government as he did in 1943.
124
B.504 in B.561, p. 159.
l25cf. above, pp. 124 ff.
 184

A people . . . has in its monarchy the basis of its

political life, but only inasmuch as it feels the monarchy
immediately as its own, as something which is completely
at one with its tradition, with its past, with that per-
sonality which it inherits from the history of its past
life, on which it must lean in facing the history that
is to come. The person of the King is the sacred
inviolable person that the citizen, if he can, should
find in the inwardness of his own national consciousness,
as his own proper personality. And where this profound
inward unity has not been formed, or has disappeared, the
legitimacy is lacking or has failed, v/hich is the spiri-
tual value of the idea and authority of the monarchy.
For in such a case the duality exists, but it is not a
duality that can be conciliated in the concordant process
of actual political life, since the fundamental unity
is lacking out of v/hich the tv/o terms ought to have
arisen.126

9. The State and Culture.

Thus the higher moral lav/ that Socrates exalts in the Crito
under the name of "the City" is for Gentile the Nation, and it is
symbolized in the person of the Monarch. The task of the school
is to produce good citizens, and the good citizen is one who like
Socrates bears the voice of "the City" v/ithin him. Gentile's
State, like Socrates' City, is properly an ideal entity, not to
be confused with the government that exists at any given moment.
But in an idealism that is at once strictly historical and
absolutely all i.nclusive, the distinction, though alv/ays asserted
when the point is raised by critics, is difficult to maintain in
practice. The strong emphasis on individual personality

B.504 in B.561, pp. 160-161. This passage presents us

with yet another version of .the theory of society in interiore
homine—and a much sounder one than that which is Based on the
metaphysical principle of conflict. But, although it is also
more definitely personal than other expressions of the doctrine,
it reveals even more clearly the basic difficulty in Gentile's
early view. Can v/e really establish social relations with a king-
as king;—sacred, inviolable, 'the Lord's Anointed One'?
 185

inherent in Actual Idealism leads paradoxically, to the devalua-

tion of the ordinary citizen and the exaltation of a few heroic
figures who personify the ideals that should be dominant in
individual consciousness.
Thus in his first lecture to the elementary school teachers
of Trieste in 1919 Gentile discusses the concept of the 'Nation'
and decides that it is not essentially connected v/ith community
of territory or language, or even with cultural tradition,
though any or all of these elements may assume special signifi-
cance in national life when the Nation is once established. It
is the 'State', the fundamental unity of will that expresses
itself, or strives to express itself, in the institutions of
social life, that constitutes the essence of the Nation—not
vice versa.
The true concept of the Nation is that v/hich was promul-
gated by Mazzini: it is a mission. The right to exist as a
nation is not a natural possession but a spiritual conquest; it
is not established in law courts but on the battlefield.-1-2' And
it is never established once and for all—the national mission is
something essentially incomplete. It is not true therefore to
say that any community is already a Nation-State: "rather, if
v/e reflect carefully, the State is alv/ays something in the future
it is the State that v/e by our action, must establish today, in
this instant . . . "128

127
B.1128, pp. 9-12; cf. English translation (B.659),
pp. 8-12.
1 PB
^ ibid., p. 13; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 13.
 186

But after this clear affirmation of an ideal, he proceeds

in his second lecture to pass directly from the Socratic view-
point to the assertion that any act of will that is successful is
ipso facto the will of the State: this would mean that by and
large the State is equivalent to the Government—however tyran-
nical— so long as it can continue to maintain its pov/er. Indeed
Gentile himself says:
. . . the tyrant destroys the liberty of the homeland
by substituting a new State for the old; likewise
the rebel, by killing the tyrant makes the revolution
if he succeeds, and establishes liberty. And if he
does not succeed, he is conquered: and his will returns
to subjection and conformity with that of the State that
he could not overthrow.129
The ideal mission of the State has scarcely any place in an
historicism as strict as this, for it can scarcely be called
moral at all.-^O
Yet Gentile would certainly deny that his historicism v/as
amoral. He would argue that such a criticism could only be
advanced from an intellectual or external point of viev/, and that
the ostensible equivocation between the assertion that the State
is always an ideal and the apparently contrary assertion that it
is the only reality arises from a refusal to adopt a strictly
spiritual, internal point of view in both cases. The State is
alv/ays an ideal for those v/ho belong to it: in a tyranny such

12
9ji.H28, p. 26; cf. English translation (B.659), p. 31.
130rj_.jie ac tual idealists claimed that Croce's viev/ that the
individual is never, properly speaking, responsible for any
action, destroyed bhe basis of morality. But this same conclu-
sion seems to be an inescapable corollary of their own theory if
what the individual really wills is always precisely v/hat the
sovereign power wills that he should will. (Cf. B.1128, p. 25;
or English translation, B.659, P- 29).
 187

spiritual citizenship may well be almost totally confined to the

ranks of the tyrants themselves.
This, however, does not solve the problem: the State is
either an ideal or it is the reality. It cannot v/ithout equi-
vocation be both at once even in a dialectical view of reality.
For if the State is the moral ideal, and at the same time it is
the one volonta that is effective, as opposed to the many
velleita that are vain strivings for the impossible, there is no
moral duty except that of being on the right side. Gentile must
tell us whether it is our duty to be successful or to abide by
the dictates of our conscience. Are v/e to "play the game" or
simply go all out to win it?
His answer to this question is really quite clear: the
ideal is more real for him than any existent entity. "One must
walk as conscience wills. This I have preached all my life",
he wrote at a moment of crisis shortly before his death.131
When he says that the only real will is that of the State he
means that everything that is real, is real precisely in so far
as it realizes the ideal. The 'ethical' State is the ideal
State not the real one. Reality is for Gentile a value term:
a thing is 'real' so far as it is good. In this sense, and in
-1 -I Q
J
this sense only, is the real State 'ethical'.
It is clear therefore that 'reality' cannot be the

1
31yita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 40 (Letter to his daughter
Teresa).
132
"The State, in short, is not moral inasmuch as it is a
State; but it is a State inasmuch as it is moral." (B.474 in
B.497, p. 216; cf. B.382 in B.497, p. 52).
li-i.i - "I r ' I i i • I ' mn • ..1,1.1 1
 188

criterion of goodness: and hence the strictness of Gentile's

historicism does not involve the impossibility of moral judge-
ment. The pity is that he often talks as if reality were the
criterion of goodness and not vice versa. It is nonsense to say
that a would-be tyrannicide who fails is ipso facto vanquished.
He may die the death of a martyr, and symbolize the aspirations
of his people for centuries. Some individuals who opposed the
'real' will and were crushed, attained a more universal signifi-
cance in their death than in any other action of their lives.
Consider Socrates who died calmly v/hen he might have escaped;
or Giordano Bruno who told his judges that they who sentenced
him stood in greater fear than he who v/as condemned: did their
wills return to conformity with that of the State which they
could not ov-ercome?133 The focussing of attention upon success-
ful action because it represents the final concreteness of
actual achievement seriously cheapens the spiritual significance
of historical idealism. -^4 it involves a short-sighted and
narrow-minded interpretation which coincides at the extreme
limit v/ith the crudest positivism or naturalism. Morally
speaking it is the apotheosis of hypocrisy.
When v/e find traces of this tendency in Gentile, it is
only charitable to suppose that the polemical exigencies of the
moment have led him into unconsidered extravagance. These early

J
Gentile himself died for an ideal: he did not die
simply to prove the rottenness of the Fascist State in Italy
v/hich was revealed by the War.
-*-^4As does the insis bence upon the metaphysical super amen to
of pain and evil—and for the same reason.
 189

lectures in Reform of Education, we should remind ourselves, v/ere

addressed to an Italian audience in a city which had just been
liberated after a very hard v/ar which ended with Italy's one
great victory. 1-^^
The concept that dominates the rest of this book is that of
Culture, the regulative ideal which transcends the actual State
and forms the coping-stone of Gentile's conception of personality.
The man of culture is one who, while submitting to the discipline
of objectivity, remains conscious that his acceptance of the
world is fundamentally a subjective act of will. He acts
'responsibly', but with a due awareness that the responsibility
is his own. He does not simply look after his own personal
interests but strives to do justice to the universal interests
of his community: and at the same time he does not merely accept
those interests as they are presented to him in existent institu-
tions or traditions; he criticizes the v/orld. He is no longer
just being educated—he has become an educator.
As v/e saw in our first chapter Gentile opposes this dynamic
conception of knowledge to the 'realism' v/hich is native to the
school, and v/hich consists in piling up knowledge in the
libraries. Knowledge, in Gentile's view, must be an active force,
guiding the personal life of a cultured individual and gradually
reshaping the v/hole of the community. Erudition, the traditional
ideal of the school, is a mere dream—an unreal world of

-*-35Qne cannot but regret, however, that this blemish should

occur in what is, on the whole, the most attractive of Gentile's
works, and far the best introduction to his thought that has
been written by anybody.
 190

contemplation;-1-30 but the proper task of the school is to awaken

man from the dream of childhood, not to lull him into a new kind
of sleep.
The First World Jar offered Gentile a magnificent opportu-
nity to shov/ hov/ the ideal of Culture, even in the most strictly
academic sense of the v/ord, could be an active force. In "The
Philosophy of the War" he extols it as the ideal unity which
alone could give meaning to the conflict. For "our adversary is
such only on condition that he belongs together with us in a
common unity that is the root both of our own spiritual being and
of his"; and hence:
. . . it is evident our being is not confined v/ithin
our 'Country' egoistically understood; and that for very
love of our Country, in order that it may have its' proper
value, and our devotion to it may be sanctified in the
absolute act that is our duty, we should all of us look
beyond our Country to a higher end.
Our Country is a sacred thing, but only if it lives
in hearts sanctified by agreement v/ith the absolute will
of God: governed, that is, by the universal laws of the
spirit. A people firm in its loyalty to Country above
all else, is certainly a strong people, a people that
has in itself the stuff of greatness; but the greatness
is barbaric, and therefore bound to fall . . .
Our Country is not an end in itself, any more than
the individual is an end in himself. The only end in
itself is the reality that becomes real in the one and
through the other, the spirit. Within the frontier and
beyond the frontier the same humanity lives and moves,
v/hich is our v/hole value, everything that we are and
that v/e wish to defend. 137

"Everything that we are and that v/e wish to defend" compre-

hends the v/hole human patrimony, the universal values of culture
and civilization. It was therefore the duty of philosophers and

136
B.416 in B.937, pp. 8-9.
137
B.306 in B.497, pp. 18-19.
m i III • i II i i II i ••II.«W i • — — — » « -

191

men of letters, according to Gentile, to emphasize this common

human heritage and maintain the universality of these cultural
values unsullied by partisan emotions. And by this ideal his
practical activity was, in fact, largely guided throughout the
conflict. 138
Both in the "Philosophy of the War" and in the Reform of
Education Gentile was addressing himself to an audience v/hich was
professionally interested in 'culture' in the academic intellec-
tual sense of the v/ord; and it is natural that this fact should
colour his interpretation of the concept. But even v/hen he is
addressing a wider non-professional public, he does not generally
give to 'culture' the broad sense that the word must have in
relation to the ordinary citizen, if it is to serve as an ideal
for all conscious life, and not simply for the scholar;139 and
one cannot escape an uneasy suspicion that his ideal of society
rests on an aristocracy of the intellect very similar to that of
Plato. In the ideal world the philosopher should be king, and
those who understand should have the authority to teach those who
do not. His unwillingness to allow doubt and argument to enter
education below the University level means inevitably that only
the so-called 'upper' classes can be cultured in the full sense
that he gives to the v/ord. For the ordinary citizen, the will of
the real State—the 'governing class'—must suffice. The

i3U
See below, Chapter V.
139
c f . B.416 and B.658 in B.937, pp. 1-37. He does seem to
have arrived, although in rather abstract and general terms, at a
broader concept more apt to the needs of his metaphysics towards
the end of his life. Cf. below, Chapter VIII, Section 4 ,
pp. 366-372.
 192

guardians of the ideal, who spur the governors to self-criticism

are the university professors.
This tendency in Gentile's writings is not, however, a
necessary corollary of his philosophy. It is obvious that any
attempt to divide the v/orld neatly into educators and educated
would only succeed through drastic oversimplification; in reality
we all have something to teach and a great deal to learn. By
emphasizing the fact that each has a contribution to make, a
proper balance can be restored to his theory. But this would mean
that we must resist all temptation to personify the moments of the
dialectic. The State is an ideal: it cannot and must not be
identified v/ith a human personality or group. And thus a really
scrupulous regard for the spirit of Gentile's philosophy would be
sufficient to destroy the foundations of his Fascism.
 CHAPTER V

THE GREAT WAR AND THE AFTERMATH

-1-* Wa r and Nationalism.

The period during which Gentile v/as developing the syste-
matic views summarized in the last chapter was also that v/hich
saw the beginning of his career in politics. Before the Great
War his practical activity was mainly confined within the charmed
circle of the academic world. His political opinions were from
the beginning those of a "Liberal of the Right", that is to say
he was a conservative in -uhe tradition of Cavour and his immedi-
ate successors, and a strong supporter of the national state
against the internationalism of the 'Reds' and the clerical uni-
versalism of the 'Blacks'. But his main interest was centred in
the field of educational reform and it v/as only his strong
feelings about Italy's part in the v/ar that led him to take an
active part in general politics.
Y/hen the war broke out in 1914 Italy was not immediately
involved and it was by no means clear that she v/ould be. In his
first pronouncement on the subject—the lecture on "The Philo-
sophy of the War" to which we have already referred1—Gentile
advocated calmness and silence. The people should wait quietly
for the official decision. Nov/ v/as a time for discipline, with-
out which the national will would lack force. For, as he went
on to argue in an article written in January 1915, the will which

•^B. 306 in B.497, pp. 1-24; cf. above, Chapter IV, pp. 149-
152 and 190-191.
possesses pov/er is "activity rigorously subjected to a law".
The Nation must have a definite conscience; the more discord
there is among the citizens, the further the Nation is from being
a reality, that is, a State. Certainly the law v/hich defines the
national conscience did not descend from heaven but is itself a
continual process of evolution, "rendered possible . . . by the
contrast of tendencies and concepts and hence by the perennial
conflict of the parties": but from the internal point of view a
moment of national peril should be a moment of resolution not of
party conflict:
. . . just as the single man has no will or real indi-
viduality of his own, v/hen every conflict of motives
remains unresolved in his mind, so there is no State or
real Nation where the parties do not submit loyally to
the law, even though it does not conform to their
aspiration: to that lav/ v/hich has in fact succeeded in
resolving and composing the internal conflicts of the
social forces that go to make up the life of the State.3
The motto for the moment sh.oti.ld therefore be provideant consules
ne quid respublica detriment! capiat £let the consuls see to it
that the Republic suffers no harm}.
This policy of silent readiness v/as the one which Gentile
himself followed. After Caporetto he confessed that he had
alv/ays expected and indeed hoped that Italy would intervene: but
until that time he kept this personal opinion to himself and
continued to call for national solidarity. In view of his con-
sidered opinion that there was too much talking already, it was
only logical that he should remain silent. In 1914, on the death

2
B.333 in B.497, p. 26.
3
ibid., p. 27.
of Bonato Jaja he succeeded to his former teacher's chair, and
moved from Palermo to Pisa. Soon after his arrival he became a
member of the "Committee for Civil Preparation and Mobilization"
in that city; and in May 1915 Italy entered the War on the side
of the Allies. But Gentile's main concern in this period was
not directly with the War: like Croce, he devoted himself to
the defence of the world of academic studies against the perver-
sions of v/ar hysteria and extreme nationalism.4 Thus in
November 1915 he v/rote quite a laudatory review of a translation
of Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation. Instead of the
mordant criticism which would have been so easy, and must have
seemed so tempting, he quietly pointed out that the "superiority
of the German Nation v/as merely a personal prejudice of
Fichte's, which had no foundation in his speculative doctrine
of the nation, and should not blind us to the value of that
doctrine. And a few months later we find him heartily
condemning the general tendency to decry all things German. The
thesis—popular at that time—that everything of value in German
philosophy came from France, v/as only true, in his opinion, if
it was taken to mean no more than Spaventa's doctrine of the
'circulation of thought in Europe'. Thus, while it was true
that Kant v/ould not have been what he was without Rousseau's

^"This was in accordance with the policy which he proposed

for the academic world in "The Philosophy of the War" (cf. above
Chapter IV, p. 190 ).
5
B.341 in B.497, pp. 156-161; cf. B.372 (March 1916) in
B.497, p. 173: "If Fichte was wrong in considering his own as
the chosen people, there is no need to commit a like error v/hen
one wishes to confute him."
 196

influence, it was also true that he found truths in Rousseau

that other readers had not recognized—"So that even as a con-
dition of Kant, Rousseau counts, not because he was a condition,
but because Kant made one out of him."6u
Gentile himself absolutely condemned the Gospel of German
Imperialism with its tacit assumption that Might is Right.
Treitschke's doctrine that the State is simply force he regarded
as a sophism. But even when the tide was turning and the Allies
were winning, he insisted that it did express one aspect of the
truth,"7 and moreover that this aspect v/as one which the Latin
countries, unlike Germany, had never yet mastered.^ The Germans
had long understood that there can be no real liberty v/ithout
lav/, and no pov/er—even moral power—without discipline: but
certain German propagandists had lifted the doctrine out of its
total context in the v/ork of great German philosophers, who
would be horrified to see how it had been transformed. "Pan-
Germanism" v/as a mysticism of a kind that Hegel abominated—the
essentially moral and indeed Christian character of his politi-
cal theory was utterly falsified in "Statolatry a la
o
Treitschke".J
Along with his critical defence of the cultural tradition
of the enemy v/ent a severe critique of the doctrines of extreme

6
B.361 i n B.497, p . 268.
7
'See below, p . 209 f o r h i s c r i t i q u e of t h e d o c t r i n e .
8
B.468 and B.432, p p . 195-206 e s p e c i a l l y p p . 202-203; cf.
B.433 i n B.497, p p . 207-212.
9j3.474 i n B.497, p p . 213-218; cf. B.480 i n B.497,
p p . 219-223.
nationalism at home. Gentile felt that the Nationalist Party
tended to regard the Nation as a sort of natural entity, and to
reduce the individual citizen to a sort of canis nationalis. Not
all Nationalists were guilty of such extremism as this, but even
where they possessed a more truly historical conception of the
Nation, they still treated it as a pres\ipposition, an outward
reality instead of an inward ideal. ° Corradini was right, for
instance, when he claimed in his Regime of the Productive Bour-
geoisie (1918) that democracy is only possible if the pov/er for
v/hich the parties contend is itself firmly established. But
when he went on to argue that a real democracy must be 'collec-
tivist' like the Catholic Church, Gentile was moved to comment:
The parallel may appear dangerous . . . In any case,
I cannot grasp the reason for the author's pitiless
aversion to liberalism, which—though it may be con-
venient enough for the socialists to confuse it v/ith
individualism—was never individualist except in its
origins in natural law theory, and then only for com-
pletely transitory reasons of history.H
It was the defeat at Caporetto bhat really unsealed
Gentile's lips. Caporetto and Vittorio Veneto expressed for him
the whole moral significance of the War. In those last bwelve
months he poured out a spate of articles calling for national
solidarity, discipline, sacrifice, and increased efforts.
Instead of passing over the existence of party strife in silence,
he castigated the various sections of the Liberal Party for
their lack of any abiding faith, and did not hesitate to

±U
B.382 (March 1917) in B.497, pp. 48-52.
i;L
B.48l (August 1918) in B.497, pp. 55-56. A few years
later he v/as extolling the Fascist spirit as essentially reli-
gious and generally condemning the liberal tradition as egoistic.
 198

accentuate the dilemma of the Socialist and Catholic Parties,

whose members were faced with the choice between their loyalty
to the nation and the supra-national ideals which their respec-
tive parties existed to serve. He acknov/ledged the existence of
a large group of neutralists, people v/ho v/ere still living in
the days before the intervention, and refusing to face the real
situation because they had failed to grasp its "historical
necessity";12 this group he particularly despised, for they
represented to him a past that he regarded as absolutely dead.
On the sixth of November 1917, Gentile issued a procla-
mation on behalf of the Pisan War Committee previously referred
to, calling on the people to remain calm and steadfast under the
threat of invasion. In December he made his own profession of
faith in an article entitled "Examination of Conscience". Those
who in 1915 had been eager for war v/ere now in doubt, but not
Gentile v/ho had been silent then:
I also—and I am glad to turn back and declare it at
this moment—was firmly of the opinion that a great
people . . . could not stand aside as a mere spectator
of the struggle in v/hich the future of all humanity
was at stake . . .13
The enemies of Italy in the old days, he goes on, said that we
were incapable of discipline (political, moral or religious) and

So far as I can see Gentile has no right to talk of

"historical necessity" at all—as he does in "24 maggio 1915"
(B.437, May 1918, in B.497, pp. 115-119). The words are mis-
leading in his mouth since they cannot properly imply any
transcendent compelling pov/er or inevitable fate such as they
suggest to the ordinary reader. Gentile really means that the
War is a test that Italy had to undergo in order to wipe out the
disgraces of the past (cf. B.424 in B.497, p. 191) and to set
seal on her existence as a great nation.
13
B.384 in B.497, p. 61.
 199

that we were unwilling to work. If indeed the Risorgimento was

nothing but the work of a few individuals aided by good fortune,
if it has no roots in history and in our hearts, then the only
reason for our existence as a State is at best "to enable some
hundreds of lawyers to assemble in Rome and gossip about the
interests of this or that group."14 in that case we may perish
as a nation, but it v/ill not matter much: "An Italy destined to
perish as a result of a military defeat v/ould no longer have
been v/orthy to live—if it ever had been. "1-)
In the next few months Gentile condLicted his own inquiry
into the disaster. His problem was not whether Italy's inter-
vention v/as right, but whether it had been a real intervention;
and in general his conclusion v/as that it had not. For this
all Italians must share the responsibility. It v/as futile to
seek a scapegoat on v/hose shoulders the blame could be laid; for
though nothing is ever done except by individuals, it is the
idea behind the individual that gives him the pov/er to act—and
this idea is generated by the v/hole social complex. So that it
might perhaps be legitimate to blame giolittismo for the debacle;
but Giolitti himself could not alone be held responsible for the
system that went by his name. " The whole people had delegated

14
B.384 in B.497, p. 61.
-^ibid. , p. 63.
Giovanni Giolitti v/as a leader of the group of factions
that went by the name of the Liberal Party who, by his appre-
ciation of the parliamentary situation and his skill in the
manipulation of patronage, had created something resembling a
parliamentary dictatorship in Italy in the first fifteen years
of this century.
 200

authority and responsibility to the persons whom they v/ere now so

ready to condemn. A people gets the government it deserves. 1 7
If a truly national morale had been created in the schools before
the War the military disaster would never have happened. There
was thus no_ aspect of the national calamity for which the respon-
sibility did not rest on all alike.1^

In any case it would do no good to shift the blame onto

other people; for "every punishment that is not a violent and

destructive vendetta must come from within and not from v/ith-
iq
out." J And"to maintain a vendetta at such a time would be
ruinous; with the defeat of the Nation all the individual citi-
zens v/ould be "morally suppressed". All should therefore stand
together and resist the enemy. 2 0 in view of the critical situa-
tion the suppression of profiteering scandals by the official
censorship was justified because it prevented both sides—the
interventionists v/ho had expected an easy victory and needed a
scapegoat, and the neutralists who saw their v/orst hopes ful-
filled—from continuing their factional strife and strengthening
the inner hidden enemy: the pessimism and self-distrust v/hich
corroded morale. This secret cynicism was, in Gentile's opinion,
a legacy of the centuries of decadence out of which certain German
professors had created the myth of the 'Italian character': PI

17
B.421 in B.497, pp. 74-78.
l8
B . 4 2 2 in B.497, pp. 79-83.
19
B.420 in -b.497, p. 70.
20
B.428 in B.497, pp. 95-99-
2l
B.434 in B.497, pp. 110-114.
 201

v/ith its facade of ,; tough-mindednessi', and 'realism' it was in his

eyes a far more dangerous enemy than Germanophiles, pacifists,
smugglers or spies. 22
By the time Gentile had completed this diagnosis it was
March 1918; and despite his plea for no recrimination he had him-
self attacked first the Vatican, and then the Catholic party as
early as January; .at the end of February he turned on the
Socialists; and finally in June he bitterly criticized the mem-
bers of the Italian Parliament as a v/hole.
There is a passage in one of the articles already referred
to v/hich explains this apparent inconsistency. V/hen he was
considering why national morale had not been built up before the
War Gentilev/as moved to comment on the divisions in Italian life
prior to 1914. Liberalism had then been faced by two great
forces—the Socialists and the clericals—with purely negative
programmes regarding the national State. It had failed to find
a positive ideal to set against them and had been reduced to
sterile negations. The War, however, had provided a national
ideal v/ith positive content, and thus marked the beginning of a
new period in Italian history. In the face of this new ideal the
Liberalism of Giolitti v/as a mere relic of the past, and the.
supra-national ideals of the Catholics and socialists were
revealed as ambiguous and negative. So that, although it was
fruitless to repine about the past, all of these partisan factions
deserved to be condemned for their attitude in the present.
The Pope he regarded as an external force in any case.

B.431 in B.497, pp. 105-109.

 20

His own view was that the Pope had no legal right to the indepen-
dence that v/as claimed by the Holy See,, and his attitude to the
Church as an independent pov/er de facto was naturally hostile.
As early as February 1918 v/e find him protesting that the Pope
must not have a seat at the Peace Conference, and no suggestion
that the Law of Guarantees be internationalized must be
admitted.23 Benedict X V s Peace Message at Christmas 1917 drew
from him the acid comment that His Holiness' conception of war
v/as "Arcadian and even materialist" and most certainly not that
of the Christian v/ho seeks peace with God by doing His Will; and
the cynical suggestion that He was really afraid of the War
because it made men conscious of the ethical and religious
character of the State. 2 4
His main complaint against the Catholic party was founded
on the ambiguous nature of the allegiance which it owed both to
the State and to bhis pov/er that claimed independence of the
State. It was not, he complained, a spontaneous grov/th from
below, but an emanation from authority above: and therefore the
undeniable fact that the majority of its ordinary members were
unconscious of any conflict of loyalty v/as no real guarantee
against subversion, since the directive impulse did not come

"B.426 in -b.497, pp. 142-145.

4]3.4i8 in B.497, pp. 124-128. He reasserted his own view
that the "separation of Chruch and State", essential to the
Risorgimento tradition involved a claim by the State to be an
autonomous source of spiritual value, and added that the majority
of Italian Catholics accorded it this autonomy—in an article
of January 1918 (B.462 in B.497, pp. 138-141; cf. also B.443,
August 1918, in B.497, pp. 146-150).
 203

from the majority. 2-?

His indictment of the socialists was very similar. They
were officially neutral in this "bourgeois" v/ar. But Marx him-
self v/as quick to recognize that no neutrality can be absolute in
history. Even the International and the Brotherhood of Man v/ere
ideals that must bide their time. The Nation had a place in the
dialectic v/hich was to lead to the triumph of the proletariate.
The good socialist should make up his mind whether the governing
classes were fighting for the Revolution or against it, and then
either help or hinder them accordingly. The class v/ar was not
a division of labour.2" If socialists insisted on pressing class
interests they v/ould create an anarchy similar to that which
(according to Gentile) the Bolsheviks had created in Russia.
Most of them declared that they did not want this, but it v/as not
enough to affirm their loyalty. They should recognize, as the
German Social Democrats did, that the national capital must be
preserved even though it v/as to the advantage of the capitalists;
otherwise the Revolution would be a Pyrrhic victory for the
proletariate. This recognition however would involve one
Socialist party in conflict v/ith another. Because they shirked
this prospect the Italian socialists preferred conflict among
on
themselves. '
As for the Italian parliament, it had not been of one mind

25'B.419 i n B . 4 9 7 , p p . 1 2 9 - 1 3 3 ; cf. B.423 i n B . 4 9 7 ,

pp. 1 3,4-
4-137.
26
'B.427 i n B . 4 9 7 , p p . 2 3 7 - 2 4 1 .
27
B . 4 2 9 a n d B.472 i n B . 4 9 7 , p p . 242-252.
 204

since the very beginning of the War; and the members had never
ceased to advertise this to the world at large. In June Gentile

declared in disgust that men of good v/ill had begun to distrust

everything that v/as said there, on account of the eternal petty
squabbling; and he gave warning that the continual refusal to
accept communal responsibility for anything brought dishonour on
the whole institution of Parliament:
A chamber that persists in ignoring this need [[to
unite together soberly and sincerely, v/ith a communal
sense of dignity and determination, in support of an
agreed programme} is no use to the country; and
certainly it cannot arouse respect and trust. The
deputies themselves confess it once they are av/ay from
Montecitorio. But a people that despises its own
institutions, cannot stand erect. All the parties
should reflect thoroughly about this, for when they
have made this Parliament, v/hich they are allowing to
fall so low, completely impotent, v/hat will they put
in its place, that can satisfy and safeguard the very
interests, which each party represents?28
He felt that the War had opened a new epoch for Italy; the
checking of the Austrian invasion on the Piave showed that the
po
J
spirit of the Risorgimento was not dead. Hut this spirit must
be kept alive in Italian political life after the War:30 and i t
certainly was not to be found on Montecitorio.
His disgust with the Italian Parliament v/as reflected in
his review of La rivolta ideale by the nationalist Alfredo Oriani
in July 1918. His impressions v/ere somewhat mixed—he found

28
B.475 in B.497, p. 123.
29
B.467 in B.497, pp. 263-268.
He gave cordial support to movements formed by young
servicemen v/ith this aim in mind: and he also suggested that the
problems of demobilization, etc., should be studied in advance.
Cf, B.476 (June 1918) in B.497, pp. 258-262.
'-»* w
205

some chapters "amazingly clear" and others obscure—but he felt

that the book was the work of a great spirit. 31 There can be
little doubt that he was now more friendly to the official
Nationalists than he had been in March 1917.° 2

2. The League of JNations and the Armistice.

As it became obvious that victory was only a matter of
time Gentile like everyone else turned his attention to the
problems of the Peace. He v/as not at all disposed to be 'kind to
the Germans' (still less to the Austrians). Indeed he did not
even trust them, but advocated caution in dealing v/ith their
early overtures, and insisted that they must accept and fulfil
Allied terms to the letter. 33 r^g German professions of a change
of heart provoked him to disgusted scepticism; he felt that their
new 'democratic faith' was a far greater blot on their ovai honour
than the fact of military defeat.34
Towards the much discussed project of a Society of .Nations
Gentile v/as cool from the beginning: and the way in which the
Italian admirers of the American President hailed Wilson as a
true follower of Mazzini aroused his bitterest vein of sarcasm.
It annoyed him to'see the minority groups in the Austrian Empire

31
B.441 in B.497, pp. 309-314.
32
Cf. above, pp. 196-197. But it was in August 1918 that
he wrote his defence of the liberal State against the attack of
Corradini; and in September he defended the democratic ideal of
respect for the individual person (B.485 in B.497, pp. 288-293).
33
B.448, B.449, B.451, and B.454 in B.497, pp. 342-345,
pp. 346-350, 351-355, and 361-365, respectively.
34
B.455 in B.497, pp. 366-370.
 206

and the Balkans all clamouring for their "national rights"; and
it angered him intensely that Mazzini's gospel of the nation as
a moral mission accomplished through strife, endurance and sacri-
fice should be turned into a theory of the 'right of national
self-determination' .-^
He v/as very sceptical about the v/hole idea of attempting
to solve historical problems by the application of ideal criteria.
He pointed out that none of the supporters of the principle of
self-determination was really prepared to apply it consistently—
even Wilson would hardly consider applying it to the six hundred
thousand Italians in New York 136 j^a^ Mazzini himself had sometimes'
appealed to strategic and other non-ethnic considerations in
deciding where a national frontier should run.37 ^ n the talk
about abstract ideals only roused vain hope and impossible
problems. History remained alv/ays a tragic contrast of opposed
ideals; only through suffering and strife could man advance

3
^B.505 and B.506 in B.1280, especially Chapter II.
36
B.517 in B.561, pp. 101-106.
37
B.450 in B.497, pp. 330-335. Gentile lays special
emphasis on the fact that Mazzini's pronouncements about the
Adriatic question were inconsistent and that no conclusion can
legitimately be drawn from them. It is obvious that he is
concerned principally about Italy's interests in the Adriatic and
in the North. It is easy to see why he should be anxious about
the principle of national self-determination as it applied to the
Italian frontier problem. But 1 confess that I am sorely puzzled
by his diatribes against the "rights" of the small nations. After
all, the Austrian Empire had to be dealt with on some principle—
and Gentile certainly held no brief for its preservation. The one
nation, other than the nev/ Austria, v/hose "rights" might threaten
Italian interests v/as Serbia. But against her his argument would
not hold. For Serbia had demonstrated her national mission
through endurance and sacrifice as clearly, perhaps more clearly,
than any nation in Europe.
 207

38
towards a Society of Nations.
Nor could we ever do more than advance towards it. It is
and must remain an ideal—an ideal that is as old as man, and is
realized gradually and imperfectly all the time. The Society of
Nations conceived in the Wilsonian sense as an existent organiza-
tion was an Utopian fantasy v/hich rested on an erroneous philo-
sophy—the unhistorical atomism of the Age of Reason. The prob-
lem of the existence of a Society of Nations is a philosophical
one and not an empirical one: we must understand first what v/e
mean by a society. The State is a true society, because the
individual is inconceivable apart from it. It exists as an
historical institution only in order to modify and regulate
social relations that have always existed.
At this point Gentile becomes rather inconsistent. For he
has already admitted that social relations bind all humanity
together; and therefore the Society of Nations has the same ideal
or eternal, status as the State. Since he now goes on to admit
that an existent international organization may be able to
modify and regulate conflicts between member nations it is
apparent that there is no sound speculative reason against the
existence of an organized Society of Nations as long as it is
conceived historically, as something that must evolve. There
will be continual crises; the international juridical order must
inevitably be a gradual grov/th, and it can only grow if it is an
effective conciliation of the actual living interests of nations.
War can only be abolished if all parties honestly indicate the

JU
B.540 in B.561, pp. 114-119.
 208

problems that touch their interests most nearly. Italians cannot

surrender the interests of Italy since Europe and the world exist,
for them, only through their nation.39
The whole of his philosophical criticism, therefore, means
no more than that it is impossible to organize the world once for
all and to banish all conflict finally. Whenever he speaks of
the Society of Nations he seems to have this Utopian fantasy in
mind;40 ^ u t ne did recognize that there v/ere some interested
parties—lord Cecil for instance—whose conception of the task
before them v/as quite concrete and historical. There are signs,
however, that he did not really approve of the idea even v/hen it
was conceived properly; and that, in all probability, is why he
concentrated his attention upon the Utopian conception of which
he could legitimately disapprove as a philosopher. For it seemed
to him that, from any point of viev/, a Society of Nations implied
a somewhat Arcadian ideal of life: faced with the proposal that
international v/ar should be abolished he v/as obviously uneasy.41
In his essay on Mazzini he cited the message which the great
Genoese sent to a Pacifist conference. "Peace cannot become the
law of human society except through strife . . . A strife which
is necessary, a war which is as sacred as peace, since the triumph

•^B.515 in B.497, pp. 371-381.

4°in his viev/ it was already clear by 1920 that the Society
of Nations v/as a fantasy generated by v/ar weariness. "Who remem-
bers anymore," he v/rote in the Preface to After the Victory,
". . . the Society of Nations which made so many hearts beat
faster?"
41B.515 in B.497, p. 376.
 209

of the Good is to result from it."42 A very similar personal

feeling colours everything that he wrote about Wilson and the
League: he insists always on an absolutely precise and universal
interpretation of what his opponeiats say, and often appears to
think that the resulting inconsistencies are a sufficient refuta-
tion of the thesis which they advance. But his own pronouncements
would not stand up to this sort of treatment, and he is always
ready to find an acceptable interpretation of the expressions used
by those with whom he is in moral agreement. His attitude is,
therefore, to say the least of it, disingenuous.
In his own vision of the v/orld the Allied victory v/as the
resolution of a great conflict in the universal will. The Will
of William II was not simply his own, it was the will of his
people.43 His Germany fell; but the nation Bismarck had creabed
lived on, and v/ould eventually, as Gentile recognized, absorb the
Germanic elements of the old Dual Monarchy. Realpolitik had two
main aspects. As criticism of abstract moralism on politics it
was valuable: but, in its denial of the moral lav/ immanent in
the Will which it glorified, it committed a terrible error. The
distinction of p^lblic from private morality can only serve to
destroy the roots of any morality in the individual conscience of
the citizen—"alv/ays individual, but never private".44 pure
V/ill—the virtu of Machiavelli—has no roots in the universal and

42
B.1280, p. 22.
43su.t this does not mean that he was not personally respon-
sible as well, for he governed Germany precisely inasmuch as the
national v/ill coincided with his own.
44B.408 in B.561, p. 14.
hence perishes v/ith the individual. The defeat of Pan-German
activism v/as thus a sort of last echo of Renaissance individ-
ualism: the downfall of Austria was a different matter. Here
was a resurgence of the national spirit released by Napoleon.
But both alike clearly demonstrated the dangers of national
egoism or particularism. It v/as not just a group of nations but
an ideal of international justice that had triumphed. There was
general recognition of the need to arm this ideal for the defence
of common interests in future.42
For Italy the War v/as the fulfilment of the Risorgimento:
a final proof that the Nation which took possession of its
capital in 1870 had now conquered the hearts and minds of its
people. Vittorio Veneto at last made Italy clearly an Italian
creation.4° Unfortunately, however, the other Allies did not
accept Gentile's distinctly roseate view of the Italian contri-
bution to the War; and so v/ithin a year (October 1919) he was
complaining that the great victory had been betrayed. Was it not
Italy v/ho had broken the deadlock of the War? Yet now she was
despised and threatened by her erstwhile Allies. The very
nations v/hich had eagerly solicited her intervention had now
almost forgotten her existence, and. were settling questions in
v/hich she v/as vitally interested v/ithout reference to her. Her
modest colonial aspirations were ignored; Fiume, without which
all Dalmatia v/as in jeopardy, was denied. The Italian poli-
ticians v/ho, in their realism, had never wanted the War were now

4^6.408 in B. 561, pp. 3-25.

46
B.456 in B.561, pp. 26-30.
 211

coming out of their holes in triumph. The War had been fought to
prove them v/rong, and redeem Italy from the old spirit of dolce
far niente: but they had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing—
already they were talking of inquiries to determine where the
'responsibility' for intervention lay. How could they be
expected to understand the "generous gesture of Fiume"?47
Thus far Gentile sounds like a polite understudy of Musso-
lini. But he concludes moderately: the Peace Conference was
bound to be a kind of War; it v/as foolish to talk of gratitude
and we ought not to have believed in an Age of Gold even if the
Wilsonians talked of it. Even the League came about only through
compromise between opposing forces. The internal, moral benefits
of the v/ar are what really matter. It has produced a great
advance in national personality. No one, after all, v/ould have
thought of demanding Fiume before 1915; and the great urge
tov/ards national justice v/ill sv/eep av/ay the petty politicians
in time.48

3. "La_ vigilia".
Unfortunately, his optimistic prognostications seemed more
and more unlikely to come true. The four years after the War
v/ere dominated by the same prewar politicians and there v/as no
sign of the much looked for resurgence of the national spirit
v/ithin the framework of liberal democracy. The Church—that old
enemy of the liberal State—came forward into the political arena

47'fhe town v/as seized and held for a year by the poet
D'Annunzio at the head of the rabble.
4b
D.508 in B.561, pp. 69-91.
 212

in the form of the Popular Party (Popolari), founded and led by

the Sicilian priest Don Luigi Sturzo. The socialists continued
to preach revolution while accepting parliamentary government;
and salved their consciences by refusing to accept parliamentary
responsibility.49 xt seemed that the Liberals had still to find
a positive ideal; and there was still too much shouting and talk
even among those who v/ere imbued v/ith the nev/ spirit.
At first, as he had done v/hen the War broke out, Gentile
counselled patience. Italy could not be brought into existence
by violent resolutions. It must have time to grow. Nothing
would be achieved by hasty action and it was no use expecting
milk and honey to flow just because the War was over.^O Auster-
ity v/as inevitable—and since it was so the Government should set
the example and not be content with exhortations. It v/as time
to have done v/ith pressure groups and face the realities of the
economic situation with courage.^
Despite his dissatisfaction, Gentile continued to defend
the liberal tradition of the Risorgimento, Some critics com-
plained that this liberalism v/as now an out of date conservatism.
Where, then, he asked, is the new liberalism? The ideal of

49-J3.508 in B.561, pp. 77 ff. ; cf. B. 569 in B.818, p. 247.

p0
B.458 in B.561.
pl
B.536 in B.561, pp. 63-68. It should be noted that
Gentile takes a distinctly prejudiced view of the class struggle.
He habitually opposes the "just claims of the working classes"
to the "general necessities of national life". Since the
guardians of the national interest are the governing classes,
that is the bourgeoisie, there is an implicit and quite illegiti-
mate identification of the national interest with that of the
capitalists.
 213

socialism lies in the withering away of the State. No true

liberal can accept that. But he admitted that it was permissible
to support the moderates in the Socialist party in the belief
that, when they came to power, the Socialists woiild be obliged
to accomodate their theoretical aims to the political realities.
On the other hand, he pleaded that it was also legitimate to
support a more conservative programme as a counterbalance to the
activities of some of the more extreme socialists. A true liberal
must neither attack the one view nor support the other too
dogmatically; for in the sense of solidarity lies the best
defence against revolution.-32 Against Bolshevism the memory of
victory was the best defence—"the strongest guarantee of social
concord for all classes".23
Just as he was disposed to admit that there might be some
good in the moderate wing of the Socialist party, so he considered
that there were some real liberals among the Popolari. He
continued to attack the equivocal position adopted by the latter
concerning the relations of Church and State—all his life he
remained suspicious of the Vatican and held that any attempt to
cover up or explain away the breach of 1870 v/as contrary to the
real interests of both parties;24 and he regarded the "non-con-
fessional Catholicism" of Don Struzo as a contradiction in terras.

52B.521, B.522, and B.524 in B.561, pp. 162-187.

23.B.457 in B.561, p. 40. A little further on (page 42) he
remarks that "outside of Russia the spectre of Bolshevism is the
last bogey of the defeatists v/ho have survived the victory." So
much for the Bolshevism from which Mussolini saved Italy!
54JB.541 and B. 535 in B.561, pp. 128-140.
But he admitted that there was a breadth and elasticity about
Sturzo's views that v/as lacking in the more traditional and con-
sistent clericalism of the right-wing Popolari. Sturzo's incon-
sistencies had the breath of real life in them.55
After 1919 the series of newspaper articles which Gentile
had for several years been writing, mainly for the conservative
newspaper Il_ Resto del Carlino, ceased. 56 p o r several years
thereafter his pronouncements on general social and political
affairs were much rarer. In 1920, however, he wrote an article
criticizing the "realism" of the liberal prime minister Signor
Nitti.27 xt was entitled "Political Realism and Political
Fatalism" and in the main it v/as a practical application of a
distinction which Gentile had already drawn between two sorts of
"realism" in an article for the first issue of the periodical
Politica in 1918.2° AS practical attitudes the tv/o "realisms"
correspond to two fundamentally opposed theories of reality—
Intellectualism and Spiritualism. For the intellectualist
reality is something already complete and perfect, and forms the
necessary presupposition of all consciousness, v/hile remaining
quite independent of any consciousness of it that may actually

55
B.538 in B.561, pp. 141-146.
2°Not all of these articles v/ere reprinted in the tv/o
volumes of "political fragments" entitled War and Faith and After
the Victory. Several of these omitted articles—which "I have not
seen—dealt with the problems of the ex-combatants. I have been
unable to deal v/ith this aspect of Gentile's political activity
from lack of available material.
2'B.569 reprinted in B.818, Appendix.
28B.409 in B.561, pp. 188-216.
 215

exist: for the spiritual idealist, on the other hand, reality

forms the very substance of consciousness and is inseparable from
it. Practical wisdom in the first view means "conformity to
Nature"; morality becomes a resigned obedience to a lav/ for v/hich

the obedient subject is not responsible. Hence the ideal life is

one of maximum passivity—a dispassionate contemplation of nature,
inactive except where the reality contemplated renders some
personal adaptation necessary or advisable. While from the other
point of view it is Nature that must give v/ay. Morality means
autonomy; being moral involves not resignation, but self-
assertion; instead of obedience, mastery.
Gentile roundly accused Nitti of being a "realist" in the
former, strictly materialist sense of the word. For the Italian
premier was continually offering "necessity" as the ground for
his every action, as if thereby he was released from the moral
responsibility for v/hat he did. Such moral evasion is fatalism
and results in a policy of sheer drifting—Gentile characterized
it as "the attitude of the so-called 'liquidators' (the passive
liquidators) of the 'War."29 ne argued that the excuse was
invalid since within consciousness there could be no 'necessity'
that was not moral. In politics we must accept responsibility
for v/hat ever we take to be necessary. A H citizens must accept
responsibility for the world they live in.
We can all agree v/ith Gentile in this condemnation of
political drifting: and no one can study the history of Italy in
these four years without feeling that the successive governments

29;B.569 in B.818, p. 251.

U-. 1 1 • 1 • .
 216

generally had no policy but simply resigne.d themselves to events.

But, since Gentile declines to offer a policy himself,^0 it cannot
fairly be said that he advances beyond the view that he criti-
cizes. For without a positive criticism (a policy) to complement
it, the negative criticism he offers would have been fully
answered by the simple admission on the part of the "liquidators
of the War", that what they called the necessities of the situa-
tion in no v/ay diminished their responsibility, but rather
constituted the very morality of their actions. Such a recogni-
tion is all that Gentile's distinction of materialist from
idealist "realism" absolutely requires. It was all very well for
Gentile to counsel patience and discipline in order that the new
spirit born of the War might grow to maturity. Life was going on
all the time; and only those who v/ere prepared to say what deci-
sions were consonant v/ith the new spirit had any right to
criticize those who acted in accordance with the old. So far as
I have been able to discover Gentile never publicly committed
himself to a definite policy. The fact is that he drifted v/ith
the rest.

4. Towards the Hiforma Gentile.

In one respect, however, he did have a policy: in the last
year of the War he made proposals concerning educational organi-
zation and finance which v/ere substantially identical with the
regulations that he later enacted as Minister of Public Instruc-
tion in Mussolini's first Cabinet. In 1918 the minister of
Public instruction (Signor Berenini) made public a plan for

'B. 569 in B. 818, p. 255.

reforming the Normal Schools of which Gentile did not approve;"1
and in support of his criticisms he made a number of counter
proposals in a series of articles which were almost immediately
collected and issued as a pamphlet entitled The Problem of the
Schools after the War.
Briefly, his views v/ere as follows:
The real problem is whether Italy is to have a school that
really i_s a school or no school at -all. The present condition of
the teachers is such that only a hollow mockery of education
exists or can exist. In order to earn enough to live on the
teacher is obliged to accept, apart from his ordinary work, a
heavy schedule of "extra classes" (classi aggiunte) and even
private lessons. This means that none of them can perform their
task properly, even if they wish to, and they have no incentive
to try. One result is that all men of ability are deserting the
profession, and it is being flooded v/ith women even at the higher
levels, "v/ho, it must be said, do not possess and never will
possess the spirited originality of thought or the iron strength
of character that are the higher intellectual and moral powers
of humanity."°2

The school must be an organic unity with a single aim."3

D±
Cf. B.465 and B.470 in B.497, pp. 269-281.
^2B.435 in B.562, p. 14. Elsewhere Gentile is slightly
more tactful about this: "'uhe secondary schools are filling v/ith
women, v/ho can never take the place of men altogether. It would
even do great harm if they were in the majority; and their pre-
paration in any case, is not that of the men." (B.413 in B.562,
p. 72).
63
Cf. above Chapter III, pp. 106-107.
 218

This unity must be personified in the master who constitutes the

actuality of the school: for "there can never be real pupils
where masters are lacking."4 'There must be an end, therefore,
to extraordinary classes and private lessons; the State must pay
its teachers enough to live on; and in order to do this the
budget for elementary education must be considerably increased.
For there can be no question of the State's responsibility to
provide gratuitously, for all citizens, the education that is
compulsory according to the law. Elementary education, indeed,
establishes the basic community of culture between all citizens
which is the abstract essence of the State; naturally, therefore,
it must have absolute financial priority.
Secondary education, however, is another matter. Certainly
the preservation of culture at the higher levels is a matter of
vital concern to the State. But here it would be impossible and,
indeed, absolutely wrong to apply the same democratic, equali-
tarian principles. The State needs engineers and doctors; but
it has no obligation to train all the citizens to perform these
tasks. On the basis of the compulsory education every citizen
must found his own personal culture in relation to his position
and task in the v/hole social order. Higher academic education
therefore should be confined to an aristocracy of the intellect.
The secondary schools should be fewer and less crowded. The
multitudes of students who pass through the liceo, simply in
order to obtain a certificate which v/ill enable them to enter one
of the lesser professions or special trades, together with those

Dii
"B.413 in B.562, p. 71.
 219

v/ho go on to universities for similar utilitarian reasons—the

zavorra, or ballast as Gentile calls them.65—mUst be weeded out,
and other arrangements, less costly and less elaborate, must be
made for them to fulfil any special requirements of their chosen
careers. The multitude of Universities must justify their
existence and superfluous faculties must be pruned away.
Finally, the private schools must be brought to life: the
State should not have a monopoly in the higher levels of culture.
Here Gentile was in a slight difficulty for he had no v/ish to
withdraw from the position—v/hich he always maintained—that the
State is the only source of all public activity. He was very
embarrassed by the enthusiastic reception given to this aspect
of his plan by the "Catholic" press, and insisted that he was by
no means in favour of complete independence for private schools.
He emphasized that the State must remain responsible for all
schools and that all schools must recognize the State's authority.
This State responsibility and authority is to be demonstrated in
his plan through supervision of the qualifications of all
teachers and through a State examination system.
It is amusing to see Gentile Lising the esame di Stato
against the doctrinaire liberal objection that the responsibility
for all education must rest with the State; for in fact the
establishment of a national examination system v/as the one
absolutely essential step in the restoration of the private
schools, v/hich v/ere almost defunct because of the disadvantages

k2He had borrowed the word from Salvemini years before.

Cf. B.217 in B.813, p. 136.
I III p w

220

that they suffered under in comparison v/ith the State schools.

Prior to the Gentile reform in 1923, they v/ere hampered not
merely by their inability to compete with the State schools in
terms of fees—which v/ere very low in the State system—but also
by the fact that all official examinations were set and marked .
in the State schools by the State teachers. The private school
boy was thus most unfairly handicapped, no matter how conscien-
tious the State teacher might be; and only the establishment of
independent examination boards for each district—as v/as proposed
by the supporters of the esame di Stato—could give him a fair
chance.
Considering Gentile's plan as a whole in its relation to
the social and political situation at the time, it is not easy to
see hov/ a better one could have been devised. The economic
situation of the teacher had to be improved, and more elementary
teachers had to be trained and paid. But Italy has always been
poor, and her existence as a Nation was from the beginning over-
shadowed by a chronically unbalanced budget. In these circum-
stances economies had to be made somewhere. Some doctrinaire
liberals proposed a large increase of fees."6 j^t Gentile
regarded this as a more serious infringement of the principle of
State responsibility than his ov/n solution. If, and in so far as,
the preservation of culture was a national concern, the cost
should not be borne simply by the individuals v/ho profited
directly by its preservation. Fees must remain low, and selection
must be by examination.

Cf. B.512 in B.562, pp. 101-106.

 221

But although v/e may agree v/ith Gentile as against Berenini

that the zavorra should not continue to choke the life out of the
educational system, there is one remark in the Minister's reply
to Gentile that should give us pause:
. . . we must look at the scholastic problem as a whole
and ask ourselves whether the 'ballast' that he has
made so much play v/ith, does not contain other and
different properties, which, if they were differently
developed, instructed, and educated, might bear fruit
in ways which are socially more valuable than the
scramble after jobs, even jobs obtained by way of
examinations, for which the candidate prepares himself
as well as he can.67
Gentile's soiution of the problem, though perhaps it was the
best possible, was given too 'absolutely'. He talks like Plato
as if the State should educate every man simply for his partic-
ular task. It is by no means obvious that "secondary education
is, of its very nature, aristocratic" unless v/e take a very
narrow and academic view of education. The zavorra might well
be capable of benefiting in a different kind of school. Under
particular circumstances it may be impossible to do anything
aboiit this; but the fact that Gentile ignores the possibility,
and talks as if his solution was speculative and not empirical,
is evidence of sheer academic arrogance.

B.562, p. 30.
 222

CHAPTER VI

THE "PHILOSOPHER OF FASCISM"

1. The Riforma Gentile.

We saw in the last chapter hov/ in his investigations into
Caporetto Gentile decided that the disaster v/as ultimately due to
a complete failure to inculcate a truly patriotic attitude towards
the Nation in the schools prior to the V/ar. This viev/ v/as taken
up with especial reference to the secondary schools (of v/hich
Gentile himself v/as probably thinking) by his friend and ally
Ernesto Codignola, v/ho propounded the thesis that the secondary
schools brought about Caporetto—La Scuola Media ha preparato
Caporetto—at the first post-war congress of secondary school
teachers.1 After this Congress Codignola launched a new organi-
zation, the Fascio di Educazione Llazionale of which Gentile,
Lombardo-Radice, Varisco and many other highly respected people
were prominent members. They had no connection with Mussolini's
Fasci di Combattimento; their closest political relations v/ere
with the Nationalist Party. But they were ready to accept any
alliance which would help them to put their plans into force.

The Fascists on the other hand had no educational programme

and no strong interest in the matter. There was no one among the
Fascist ranks who possessed any knowledge of educational adminis-
tration; it v/as therefore natural that Mussolini should offer the

Lorenzo Minio-Paluelio, Education in. Easeist Italy, Oxford

University Press, 1946, p. 66; cf 7 B. 562, p"."97.
o . . .
^The Popolari for obvious reasons supported one ma]or pari:
of their programme, the esame di Stato.
 223

post to a prominent expert v/ho v/as from his point of viev/ a

benevolent neutral. Gentile, for his part, had never met the
Duce of Fascism and knew very little about him; the offer was a
complete surprise to him.3 Thus, quite unexpectedly, he got his
chance to put his ideas into practice, and, not surprisingly, he
accepted it.
There v/as nothing irrevocable about his acceptance. The
Government was a coalition of Fascists, Nationalists, Liberal
Nationalists and Popolari. It is easy to look back afterwards
and say that the writing v/as already on the wall for those v/ho
could read it, in the past history of Mussolini and the v/ay in
v/hich he came to pov/er. Hut there were many who hoped then that
the pilot might be dropped v/hen the channel had been safely navi-
gated.
Gentile actually took the irrevocable step in May 1923,
v/hen he joined the Fascist party. .But by that time the main
lines of his Reform were complete. The reform of education which
Mussolini called La piu fascista delle riforme—"the most Fascist
of the reforms"—had no connection v/ith any Fascism other than
Gentile's; and an adequate commentary on Mussolini's remark was
provided years later by Bottai v/ho was the aiithor of an undeniably
"Fascist" reform of education: he said rather sardonically
that the Riforma Gentile v/as "the most Fascist" only because at
that time there v/ere no others.
In point of fact the Riforma Gentile was not Fascist at

3
cf. B.845 in B.818, p. 172; and B.755 in ±5.1057, p. 156.
In this last passage Gentile remarks that power came to him
"inopinatamente".
 224

all, unless v/e accept Gentile's viev/ that Fascism v/as a contin-
Liation of the 'Hegelian' liberal tradition.4 'jphe basic principles
of the Reform v/ere laid down in his Report of 1907 on "The Lay
School" and in The Problem of the Schools after the War. It is
as a practical realization of these principles that we shall
consider it.5
The outstanding novelty involved in the Reform at the
elementary level v/as that the teaching of Christian religious
doctrine according to the .Roman Catholic tradition became the
core of the curriculum; in the higher grades religious instruction
was to be given "historically"—so as to provide, as it v/ere, a
sort of bridge to the secondary school in which no dogmatic
religion v/as to be taught, its place being taken by philosophy.
Apart from this major innovation no other great change v/as intro-
duced at this level. But there v/as a slight increase of emphasis
on such artistic activities as drav/ing and singing.
In the secondary schools the "organic" nature of Gentile's
approach is immediately apparent. The reforms introduced affected
the structure of the school system perhaps more than anything
else. The Classical Ginnasio-liceo continued to exist unchanged

4see below, Section 2, pp. 232-234.

Those v/ho are interested in the Gentile reform as a working
system of education should refer to the brilliant critical and
historical study by Br. Llinio-Paluello, Education in Fascist
Italy. Since in this chapter and the last we are interested in
Gentile's political activity only in so far as it mirrored or
reacted upon his social and political thought, we are constrained
in general to emphasise Gentile's OVAI view of events. Here and
there it has been possible to indicate that his views were often
limited and not devoid of bias. It would be a hopeless task,
however, to attempt an objective critique of his work as a
member of Mussolini's cabinet here.
 225

and offered a unified programme of studies extending over eight

years, v/hich gave access to the University. This was the heart
of the secondary school system as Gentile conceived.it. Classical
and Italian literature and History formed the core of the curri-
culum; and Philosophy was given an important place in the
programmes of the higher grades (the liceo). Other secondary
school programmes were organized as nearly on this model as their
particular purposes would allow. The Normal School, for example,
v/hich had hitherto accepted pupils from a variety of sources v/as
provided v/ith its -ov/n preparatory division entered directly from
the primary schools; the complete curriculum v/as planned to extend
over seven years; Latin occupied a central position in the syl-
labus for every year; and in place of the old dogmatic Pedagogy,
Philosophy—especially the philosophy of education—was to be
taught in the higher grades.
Even the more strictly scientific institutions conformed
largely to this pattern. The Technical Institute v/as provided
with a preparatory section strictly adapted to its OVAI needs, in
place of the old Technical School, v/hich had contained many pupils
v/ho merely v/ished to continue their education for a year or tv/o.
In the curriculum of this new lower course Latin v/as one of the
most important subjects. The "Modern" section of the old
classical liceo v/as combined v/ith the Physics and Mathematics
division of the Technical Institute to form a new school, the
liceo scientifico or Science Lyceum, which gave access to the
scientific faculties of the Universities. in this case, however,
an exception to the normal organic autonomy was made. The Science
Lyceum provided a course of only four years and could be entered
 226

after four years satisfactory work at any other secondary school.^

There was a strong emphasis on scientific subjects, especially
mathematics and physics, and there was no Greek: but there v/as
a marked resemblance to the Classical Lyceum in that an important
place was given to Latin, and Philosophy was taught in the higher
grades.
In the original Reform there v/as one other school which v/as
not an organic whole, complete in itself, the Lyceum for Girls
(liceo femminile) , v/hich v/as a sort of three year finishing school
for girls who did not intend to take up a career; it could be
entered after four years at any other secondary school. This
school v/as a complete innovation; but it proved unsuccessful and
was abolished after a few years.
This reorganization of the secondary schools v/as, as can be
seen even in this brief sketch, a notable advance towards the
unity of aim which was fundamental in Gentile's philosophy of
education. For each different kind of pupil, a different
school; and within eeich school a strictly regulated unitary
curriculum.7
But far more important than the new organization, at least
in the minds of the reformers, was the change that v/ould be
wrought by the nev/ "spirit" in education. Freedom and spontaneity
v/ere to take the place of the old mechanical grind of the school

This exception was made necessary "by the overall need for
economy; Gentile revealed in 1937 that he v/ould have founded a
ginnasio scientifico if he had had the x'inancial resources
possessed by some of his successors. See below, p. 287.
'The Higher Technical Institutes had different specialized
programmes; but even these appear to have been strictly regulated.
 227

dominated by the 'realistic' prejudice so acutely studied and

criticized in The Reform of Education. To this end greater free-
dom and responsibility were given to the teachers; they v/ere
informed that the detailed syllabus provided for each grade by
the Ministry was intended only as an indication of what would be
expected in the examination, not as a strict programme for the
teachers, whose proper task v/as to encourage the free development
of their pupils rather than to provide them with factual infor-
mation.
Unfortunately, the nev/ spirit made very little headway
against the weight of tradition and the normal human unwilling-
ness to accept freedom and responsibility. Nor is this surprising,
for a candid study of the Reform reveals that spontaneity could
never flourish v/ithin such a rigid scheme of things. To begin
v/ith, the pupil had no real liberty at all; his curriculum was
fixed and he had to pass one examination after another in all of
the subjects involved. The teacher, on the other hand, knew
that his success in getting his pupils through these examinations,
like circus animals through a series of hoops, v/as the criterion
by which his capabilities wo til d be judged: and whatever the
Minister's instructions to the examiners might be concerning the
evaluation oi the candidate's personal culture and general
intelligence, all parties involved in the examination v/ere bound
to recognize that it is impossible to make a reliable estimate
of such subjective elements on the basis of a single meeting.
"The facts" considered as the material presupposition of the
school are objective; the question of whether a particular candi-
date is acquainted v/ith them can be decided fairly impartially.
 228

Hence even the teacher tends to concentrate on them and on the

examination, because the pupils will recognize thereby that his
judgement and his purpose are truly objective and not conditioned
by his ov/n arbitrary caprice. We have here a speculative ground
for the realism that is natural to the school; a speculative
ground to v/hich Gentile did not pay sufficient attention either
in theory or in practice. His ov/n concern for strictness and
objectivity in the enforcement of regulations and the raising of
standards, combined with a rigid curriculum was certain to stifle
the nev/ spirit wherever it raised its head. Men will always
cling to institutions as a relief from personal responsibility
and active morality: liberty and spontaneity in education v/ill
always be an ideal approached only by a few. But except in a
system of maximum flexibility, in v/hich it is impossible for
teachers and pupils alike to evade responsibility altogether, and
possible for both parties to accept a great deal, even this
minority cannot hope to exist. Thus the Gentile reform claimed
to strike a notable blow for idealism against realism and
spiritual sloth, by substituting a list of philosophical classics
in the place of the old textbooks of "Philosophy". But it is
questionable whether this advance v/as not more than nullified if,
as seems probable, the classics were then studied simply as
examination material. To degrade the Republic into a textbook is
perhaps worse than learning by heart a summary of Plato's
"philosophy" supplied by some academic hack.

The universities, in accordance with Gentile's view of their

place in the development of the spirit, were granted full and
complete autonomy. They v/ere left to organize themselves subject
22 ««
229

only to the Minister's approval; which proved a sufficient check,

however, to make the return to strict State supervision in 1936
quite easy.
Along with the reorganization of the school system there
went several important administrative reforms v/hich were designed
in the main to secure financial economies. The staff of the
Ministry, which was renamed the "Ministry of National Education"
in homage to the nev/ spirit, was reduced in various ways, and
greater power and responsibility was given to the principals and
Q

heads of schools.
The universities v/ere divided into three classes, A, B, and
C: those in Class A were maintained by the State, those in Class
B received State assistance, and a number of the smaller univer-
sities (Class C) v/ere left to fend for themselves entirely. No
University was completely abolished—indeed a new medical school
with University status v/as actually established at Bari—but it
v/as anticipated that financial necessity v/ould cause the
abolition of some of the faculties at Universities which lacked
State support. The number of secondary schools was reduced
(especially the Normal Schools) and the teaching of various
subjects (Latin and Italian, Philosophy and History, Physics and
r
Mathematics, etc.) v/as combined.9 i<he size of classes v/as

"For this, however, Gentile could offer a philosophical

justification. Cf. Chapter III, pp. 106-107.
^There v/as much criticism of the somewhat doctrinaire
fashion in v/hich this was done. The scientists complained that
v/hile it was reasonable to expect a Physics teacher to teach
Mathematics the converse was not so natural: and both philo-
sophers and historians v/ere dissatisfied. But instead of simply
recommending that combinations be made in the most convenient
way Gentile persisted in imposing his uniform pattern.
 230

limited, and the 'extra classes' (classi aggiunte) v/ere abolished.

The many teachers, inspectors, and others who lost their positions
seem to have been either genuinely inefficient or else simply the
unlucky ones; I have seen no suggestion anywhere that political
criteria were employedlO—though "political unreliability" became
common enough in later years as the official grounds for
dismissal. In general this aspect of the reform seems to have
been quite successful.
It is obvious that the v/hole reform v/as conceived in terms
of Gentile's own philosophy; and critics v/ere not slow to
complain about this. The Catholics, especially, objected to his
conception of religion and to the restriction of religious
instruction to the elementary schools. Gentile, influenced
perhaps by political considerations—for the new government needed
the support of the Popolari—replied that the Reform must be
judged independently of his philosophy; that his opinions had very
little to do with the matter since the results would be not his
work but that of the v/hole teaching profession: and that most
of the reforms he had instituted had been recommended by others
who did not share his speculative views.12 There is this much to
be said in his defence: the majority of schoolchildren would
receive a not too dogmatic grounding in the Christian faith
according to the Roman tradition, v/ithout ever so much as hearing

1o
xw
But military service was speedily recognized as deserving-
special consideration. Cf. B.720 in B.1057, p. 112.
i:L
Cf. B.789 in B.1057, pp. 257-262.
12
Cf. B.826 in B.1057, p. 312.
 231

of Actual Idealism unless they v/ent to the liceo or into the

teaching profession. Gentile was well aware of this; it forms a
striking proof of the sincerity of his ov/n religious convictions;
and I do not think that the Catholics have ever given him due
credit for it.

2
* From- Liberalism to Fascism.
In the midst of his reforming labours the Minister was

visited by the Secretary of the National Fascist Party, v/ho came

to offer him a Party membership card. His response came in a
letter to Mussolini which deserves to be quoted in full because
it strikes the keynote of hin altitude in the succeeding years.13
(Rome, 31st May 1923)
Bear Mr. President,
As 1 am today making ray formal act of adherence to
the Fascist Party, 1 beg you to allow me a brief
declaration, in order that I may tell you that in this
adherence I believe I am fulfilling a moral obligation
of sincerity and political honesty.
As a liberal whose convictions are deep rooted and
firm, during these months in which I have had the honour
of collaborating in your great task of government and
sharing closely in the development of the principles
that inform your political action, I have become
absolutely convinced that Liberalism, as I understand
it and as the men of the glorious Right that guided
Italy in the Risorgimento understood it, the Liberalism
of liberty within the law and therefore v/ithin a State
that is strong, and a State that is conceived as an
ethical reality, is not represented in Italy today by
the liberals who are more or less openly opposed to
you, but in actual fact by yourself.
And therefore I am likewise convinced that between
the liberals of today and the Fascists who understand
the thought behind your Fascism, a genuine liberal v/ho
disdains equivocations and desires to stand at his
rightful post must range himself at your side.
Cordially Yours,
G. G.

1
3B.723 in B.1057, pp. 127-128.
 232

Naturally enough many liberals v/ere deeply offended at

Gentile's suggestion that Fascism was the true liberalism; and
they accused him of cloaking betrayal v/ith hypocrisy. Gentile
responded that they did not understand his liberalism, and that
he had never been the sort of liberal whose creed v/as the anti-
thesis of Fascism, as his critics claimed that it should be.
. . . hence when v/e were liberals and did not yet
believe v/e could become Fascists we felt, nonetheless,
the need to speak of "new liberal politics" Phruova
politica liberale"] so as to make it clear that v/e
had no intention of becoming confused v/ith the grey
mass of the indefinite liberals.14
The reference in this passage is to his share in the founding of
the political review Nuova politica lioerale; in the first issue
of this review, which appeared in January 1923 though it was
already planned before the March on Rome, there was an article by
Gentile entitled "My Liberalism" in which the true philosophical
tradition of liberalism v/as contrasted v/ith the classical politi-
cal theory that had arisen in seventeenth century England. In
the years following his accession to the"Fascist Party Gentile
never ceased to emphasize this antithesis.
The founding of Nuova politica liberale and the writing of
this article marked the conclusion of a period of gradually
increasing disillusion. Gentile had seen in the Great War a
chance to return to the great traditions of the Risorgimento and
to complete the spiritual making of Italy. Against the criticisms

4j3.845 in B.818, p. 172. This reference to the founding

0I
' kil nuova politica lioerale is somewhat disingenuous since both
Croce and Lombardo-Radice were associated with the original pro-
ject (cf. Giornale Critico III, 1922, p. 419): and both remained
hostile to Fascism. Indeed Croce was one of Gentile's most
severe critics.
 233

of the Nationalist Corradini he insisted that liberalism had never

been a doctrine of individualism "except in its origins in
natural law theory, and then only for completely transitory
reasons of history":-^-5 the implication of his argument v/as that
individualism v/as a passing phase that had soon vanished; and
this conquest of abstract individualism was, in his view, the
great lesson of the War. After the War he refused for some time
to recognize that the old enemy was not dead. But the reappear-
ance of Giolitti and the Liberals v/ho had opposed Italy's entry
into the War convinced him finally that his was not the only
liberalism that counted.
The liberalism that he opposed v/as the cosmopolitan humani-
tarian creed of the French Revolution: the creed in v/hich the
individual man has 'rights' against the State or any other social
organism: his ov/n v/as a doctrine of the State as an actual
realization of the ethical personality of tiie citizen. The State
was not, as the classical tradition held, the enemy of the indi-
vidual; nor did the assertion of its ethical character involve
the "conversion of liberalism into the statolatry of socialism",
for
. . . the Ethical State is not something that may be
materially imagined or objectively defined as opposed
to the citizen, in v/hose conscience it must have life.
It is not external to the individual; indeed, it is the
very essence of his individuality. For individuality
does not manifest itself except as a will v/hich is
universal in intent; there are no limits or obstacles

±
2j3.48l in B.497, p. 56; cf. above Chapter V, p. 197.
1
_A. little further on in the same article, however, he does
admit that the tradition of anarchic lioeralism continued to exist
alongside the deeper humanism of the u-erman philosophers.
1,1
•
 234

over v/hich it does not have to triumph—it is a will

that is law. And what else is the State if not a
conciliation between will and law? The Will really
is will v/hen it is law, just as the law is law only
so far as it is will. Therefore the individual
realizes his ov/n nature in action, precisely to the
extent to which he becomes the State.17
Certainly the politics of this liberalism—the keynote of
which is readiness to die for one's country—has nothing in common
with "the great lottery of mob democracy". It is the religion of
the patria, the sense of public duty which is the foundation of
~k'ae Stato forte, the strong State.
As we have seen, Gentile claimed that his was the liberalism
of the Risorgimento and the "Right" who carried on the tradition
of Cavour down to 1876. Arguments in support of this contention
were not lacking. None of the great leaders of this period had
hesitated to infringe on the most sacred "rights of Man" when
they felt that the interests of Italy required it. Riscasoli's
record of authoritarian government in Tuscany v/as clear; and even
Cavour, v/ho was thoroughly imbued with the classical English
tradition, v/as quite prepared to impose strict censorship of the
Press, and justified his action by declaring that States v/ere
brought to ruin by an undue respect for abstract principles.1°
Indeed, it can scarcely be denied that the "Moderates" v/ho
put the House of Savoy on the throne of Italy v/ere inclined to
authoritarian habits of thought and action. uentile's case is
sound, except perhaps for Cavour, whom he admits to be at least
partially an exception. ^ But he v/as by no means content to have

17
. b . 7 0 7 i n ±5. 8 1 8 , p p . 120-121.
lb
B . 7 8 5 i n ±5.818, p p . 1 2 4 - 1 3 5 .
! 9 c f . ±5.824 i n B . 8 1 8 , p p . 1 7 9 - 1 9 4 .
 235

only the "Moderates" on his side. He claimed that his was, above
all, the liberalism of Mazzini. Mere the problem is more compli-
cated, we have already had occasion to mention Mazzini's theory
of a national Contract as "the inauguration, the baptism of the
nation . . . the initiative that determines the normal life, the
successive and peaceful development of the forces and faculties
of the country".20 This element in Mazzini's writings, along
v/ith his theory of the "privilege of genius" and of the Nation as
a mission which is the highest moral duty of the citizens, is
obviously consistent with Gentile's rather totalitarian liberalism
as well as with his later Fascism. But there are other elements
in the gospel of the great Genoese, which can scarcely be recon-
ciled with Gentile's Hegelian view of history. The "Association"
which Mazzini conbinually exalted as a principle of the new age,
v/as voluntary in the strongest sense of the term; many positive
liberties v/ere to be guaranteed to the individual by the Nation—
some of which v/ere denied by the Fascists from the beginning;
and even if Mazzini v/as not unconditionally in favour of universal
suffrage, there can be no doubt that he held firmly to the
principle of free election. Gentile, in his study of Mazzini,
tries to argue thai: we must seize the essence of Mazzini, his
religion of the Nation, and cast aside the "outdated formulas that
Mazzini accepted from the various revolutionary currents with
which he was obliged to ally himself" .21 jjut a n interpretation
of Mazzini's 'spirit' that makes ib necessary bo cast aside many

2
0jJuties of Man, p. 236; cf. above Chapter III, pp. 90-91.
21
B.505-506 in B.1280, p. 32.
" '•' • i i II i i — — n

236,
of the beliefs and ideals for v/hich he v/orked and suffered is not
to be trusted. Mazzini would have admitted that the representa-
tive principle v/as not something absolute and inviolable; a vote
can have no value if it is not cast with a sense of raoral respon-
sibility. But he held, nevertheless, that "a democratic
inspiration is the soul of every rising faith":22 a nd I do not
think for a moment that he would have been satisfied with
Gentile's Fascist interpretation of the spirit of democracy. It
is well to bear this in mind when v/e approach Gentile's writings
in defence of Fascism, v/hich are full of the "spirit of Mazzini"
as he understood it.
Of course, the opponents of Fascism found Gentile's defence
even more offensive than the crime of which they had accused him
originally. It was nonsense, they replied, to suggest that the
great heroes of the Risorgimento v/ere all Fascists! Whereupon
Gentile v/as obliged to explain that of cotirse he did not mean
that at all. Such a suggestion v/ould be quite unjust to the
Fascists, v/ho had produced a great revolution in Italian politi-
cal life. Fascism v/as not simply a return to 1876. It contained
the living truth of the tradition of the "Right" but there was
more to it than that:
I shall content myself with pointing out . . . that
I have too much respect for history to want to give a
Fascist Party card to Spaventa or to anyone else among
the political leaders of the pre-war period; and that in
my view, although the substantial content of the authentic
liberalism of the old Kight is contained in Fascism, not
all of Fascism can be found in the old liberalism, since
Fascism is concerned with new problems . . .2j)

22
Duties of Man, p. 289.
2
3jj.834 i n B.818, p . 138. The Spaventa r e f e r r e d to i s
, . I
 237

In order to appreciate v/hat v/as new about Fascism, in

Gentile's opinion, we must consider the positive result v/hich he
considers was attained by the governments of the 'Left' after
1876. The task which was fulfilled, in the era of the 'trans-
form! sm' that was so repugnant to him, v/as that of bringing the
mass of the people into politics, making them citizens and giving
them a share in governmental responsibility. The task of "making
the Italians" which was foreseen by D'Azeglio v/as begun by the
Socialists and completed by the War, which corrected the abstract
universalism of official Socialist doctrine, and taught the whole
nation the lessons of discipline and self-sacrifice. Out of the
v/ar issued Fascism, a mass movement embodying this nev/ spirit of
national discipline, and necessitating a return to the political
principles of the 'Right'. The healthy element of the socialist
tradition—Sorel's syndicalism—had been absorbed by the new
movement: and the revival of idealism in the years before the
War had prepared the way for the new spirit.24 Meanwhile the
survivors of the old 'Right' continued to do reverence to the
Nation with their lips; but many of them v/ere so enamoured of
their ideal that they could not bear it to be contaminated by
real application—especially when its reality involved some

Silvio Spaventa (brother of the Hegelian philosopher Bertrando)

who was a major figure among the leaders 01' the 'Right' in the
generation after the death of Cavour.
24
cf. B.7'85 (October 1924) in B.818, p. 129; 13.735 (October
1923) in 1.1.818, pp. 123-124; B.778 (March 1924) in B.818, pp. 52,
56-60.
Gentile claims in several places to have been a precursor
of Fascism by virtue of his part in this revival. Cf. B.7 29 in
B.1057, pp. 167-168 and H.7 26 in E.1057, pp. 141-142.
 238

definite sacrifice and discipline on their part.25"

The importance of Fascism (according to Gentile) lay in its
readiness to act on its beliefs. In this respect it v/as
thoroughly Mazzinian; its battle cry v/as Pensiero 'ed azione,
"Thought and action". Since its attitude was fundamentally reli-
gious, Fascism was absolutely intransigent towards its opponents.
By its unbending earnestness it had bestowed something of dignity
and seriousness even on the other parties, who had hitherto been
content to squabble with one another in pursuit of their ov/n
advantage, interpreting the public good as equivalent to the
satisfaction of their own selfish egoism. Here was something that
v/as more worthy of consideration than futile arguments about the
liberties that it had ' destroyed'. 2 ° Families v/ere divided
against each other and old friendships broken. But this v/as not
something to regret, but rather to be accepted without bitterness
or malice. 2 7 A real faith alv/ays sends "not peace but a sword"
on the earth. History is a long battle of tragically opposed
ideals not a quest of peace and comfort.
This 'religious' quality whicn v.encile detected in Fascism
seemed to him to be something much greater than the Party itself.
It v/as the inward essence of the movement, the "spirit" immanent
in it v/hich conferred upon it a universal significance. Regarded
simply as a political doctrine, Fascism v/as bound to remain

^2.3.778 in B.818, p. 4b.

2b
B.833 in B.818, p. 144.
' i b i d . , pp. 147-148. In this passage Gentile alludes
directly to his break with Croce. (See the NOTE at the end of
this Chapter, pp. 302-304).
 239
i

partisan; not everyone could be a party member: but this

spiritual essence—the religious, totalitarian viev/ of life—
should and eventually would inform the consciousness of all citi-
zens. Moreover, being 'totalitarian', it must penetrate every
sphere of human activity: "It is impossible to be Fascists in
politics, and non-Fascists . . . in the school, non-Fascists in
our families, non-Fascists in our daily occupations."^0
It Is difficult, however, to see how anything as nebulous
as this 'spirit' of Fascism could exist and work anywhere outside
of the imagination of an idealist philosopher. 'Taking life
seriously'—which seems to be almost all that this 'spirit'
amounts to—could never define a Fascist as opposed to a person
v/ho acted upon any strong religious or moral conviction. Indeed,
since a conviction which is to lead to action must be determinate,
it would be impossible for the Fascist to exist as such without
some definite belief. It is impossible simply to be religious—
one must be religiotis in a definite v/ay.
Yet Gentile insisted that the nev/ spirit must not be allowed
to ossify into a credo or a system of dogma;2° he emphasized that
his own Fascism v/as only a personal interpretation of this
spirit.30 it would seem that his line of argument leads to
just that theory of 'private judgement' developed by some of the
great Protestant reformers v/hich Gentile cordially abhorred;
but since in fact Politics cannot be made out of a group of

2b
B.837 in B.818, p. 38.
29
B.8l8, p. 95.
3
°H.837 in B.818, p. 10.
 240

philosophical doctrines which the author admits to be only moral

ideals, the 'religious spirit' of v/hich Gentile talked so much
really meant just the opposite. It meant that ultimately no
Fascist could attach any value to his personal interpretation of
Fascism. As long as the new faith lacked a doctrine and a pro-
gramme—upon v/hich a really 'personal' viev/ might be founded,
that is a view which possessed a certain objective validity—it
inevitably resolved itself into simple acceptance of orders
received from above.31 And this conclusion is equally incon-
sistent with the spirit of Actual idealism.
Certainly, the acceptance of authority was typical of the
"religious" frame of mind as Gentile interpreted it; but equally
certainly he did not mean this v/hen he spoke of a return to the
religious spirit, as he often did,-*^ in the four years of the
'vigil' before the March on Rome. It would be contrary to the
whole tendency of his philosophy to suppose that he could rest
content with a politics of religious obedience. His continual
reiteration of the religious character of Fascism is perhaps,
in part, a criticism of its speculative weakness, its lack
of self-awareness and self-understanding.33 But he meant
in the main to exalt it for its objectivity and universality,

3
Just as in the Gentilian schoolroom, in the absence of a
systematic body of school rules the pupil must either absolutely
accept or absolutely reject the authority of the teacher. And the
ipse dixit as Gentile himself remarks "is not born ex abrupto".
32
e.g. B.568 in B.556.
33_nespite his apologia for Fascist violence, he is obviously
uncomfortable in dealing v/ith the problem of squadrismo: in his
attempts to dismiss the whole problem as 'teething troubles' so to
"'-* • • III I I I 111 . - I • " • —

241

v/hich were the essential prerequisites of any truly responsible,

self-conscious (philosophical) approach to politics. Given this
sound basis, he put his faith in the power of time: Fascism was
bound to grow up; Vichian barbarism v/as only its first transi-
tional stage—the violence of the squadristi had been necessary,
but it was only a passing phase. 34 Through it the nation v/ould
grow to a philosophical understanding of its own liberty.
Gentile's account of the liberty that v/as to be born of
this religious revolution-^ ±Q not very attractive, hov/ever, to
those v/ho have studied his speculative theory of personality.
Liberty, v/e should be prepared to agree, belongs not to the par-
ticular individual as a natural entity, but to the self-conscious
personality in its endeavour to obey the moral law: man demon-
strates his liberty, so far as he issues from his ov/n private
v/orld and accepts responsibility for happenings in the public
world v/hich belongs alike to all men. When Gentile goes on from
this to assert that Fascism is therefore right to reject the
egoistic liberty of classical economic liberalism,-^ no one can
deny that his argument is just in theory—and 'there v/as certainly
no lack of evidence in the history of Italy after 1870 to support

speak there is an implicit admission that religious enthusiasm can

sometimes lead to excesses. Cf. B.837 in B.818, p. 30; B.735 in
B.818, p. 124; and B.836 in B.937, p. 56 (cited below, p. 252).
34B.837 in B.818, pp. 29-32; B.735 in B.818, p. 124; and
B.830 in B.818, p. 156.
-^Expounded in a lecture on "Liberty and Liberalism" at the
•Fascist University' of Bologna on March 9, 1925 (B.828 in B.818,
pp. 65-95).
36
Cf. e.g. B.778 in B.818, p. 49; B.785 in B.0I8, p. 126.
 242

his contention that this egoism had so dominated practical

politics as to make the State no more than an instrument in the
service of individual interests and factions.37 rp}ie thesis which
he advances in place of this utilitarian theory is that man
becomes human in society: and society as an organism unified by
lav/ is the State. The State therefore is not an external power
imposing itself on the individual. Society is in interiore homine,
and the State is not a system of related atoms but the concrete
realization of the one individual. 38 i'his is not to say, Gentile
goes on, that opposition is impossible: conflict and progress
form the life of this greater individual. Even in foreign
relations the same unity is maintained. The State either obtains
international recognition by peaceful means, or establishes a
community of personality betv/een itself and its opponents tlirough
war and the conference table.-^
All this is no more than we know already and there aeems to
be nothing dangerous or reprehensible about it. But Gentile in a
university lecture hall (even the lecture hall of the 'Fascist
University' at Bologna) is almost another person from Gentile as
a supporter of the Fascist State. Liberty, he told his fellow
Sicilians in a speech before the elections of 1924, is
. . . the supreme end and norm of every human life: but
only inasmuch as individual and social education realizes
it, by making active in the single person the common
will, v/hich manifests itself as lav/, and hence as the
State . . . State and individual, from this point of view,

37B.778 in B.818, pp. 45, 54; B.783 in B.818, p. 214.

38B.828 in B.818, pp. 89-90.
39ibid., pp. 92-94.
 243

are identical, and the art of government is the art of

conciliating and uniting the tv/o terms in stich a v/ay
that a maximum of liberty is conciliated not merely v/ith
a maximum of purely external public order, but also and
above all v/ith a maximum acceptance of the sovereignty
of the law and its necessary organs. For always the
maximum liberty coincides with the maximum force of the
State.40
This passage contains the crux of the theory that the State is
internal to the consciousness of the individual. For the State
which makes its v/ill to coincide v/ith that of the individual,
through the educational control it exercises, is certainly not
(in any important sense) a State that includes its own opponents.
It is the Government purely and simply: and v/hile there may be
some disagreement among the members of the government, there is
no room for disagreement on the part of the ordinary citizen.
His part is to obey: otherwise he is a criminal—one who has
betrayed his status as a free and moral being.41
Certainly it is right and natural for the duly constituted
representatives of a State or society of any kind to endeavour
to imbue its members with a spirit of loyalty towards itself.
Certainly, too, a member who is imbued v/ith this loyalty will
readily agree that the laws and commands of the governing body
must be obeyed even when one disagrees v/ith the government. But
no one can continue long to make this distinction betv/een the
government with v/hich he disagrees, and the State to v/hich he
owes allegiance unless within the framework of the State there is

40B.778 in B.818, p. 50.

41cf. B.818, p. 102, where the State is acknowledged to be
an ideal—but an ideal which tends to be ever more completely
embodied in the government—thanks to governmental activity.
 244

a means by which he can make his own v/ill felt, and reverse the
educational relation subsisting betv/een himself and the official
authorities. Mazzini recognized this very clearly:
. -. . National Education shall at the conclusion of its
teaching dismiss the pupils v/ith these v/ords: "To you,
destined to live under a common compact v/ith us, v/e have
taught'the fundamental bases of this compact, the prin-
ciples in which your nation believes today. But remember
that the first of these principles is Progress. Remember
that your mission as a man and as a citizen is to improve
the mind and the heart of your brothers wherever you can.
Go, examine, compare, and if you discover a truth
superior to v/hat we believe we possess, publish it
boldly and you will have the blessing of your
Country."...
The State represents a certain sum and set of principles
in which the universal body of citizens are agreed at
the time of its foundation. Suppose that a new and true
principle, a new and reasonable development of the
truths v/hich give life to the State, is revealed to
some of the citizens; how can they spread the know-
ledge of it without association? . . .42
Gentile, however, proceeds directly from the conclusion
that liberty is synonymous with State power to a justification
of Fascist violence v/hich became notorious even outside of Italy.
His argument v/ill not surprise attentive readers of our fourth
chapter: it rests on his refusal to recognize any distinction
between 'moral' and 'material' force. There are those, he admits,
v/ho
distinguish moral from material force: the force of
the law freely v/illed and accepted, from the force of
violence which is absolutely opposed to the will of the
citizen. But such distinctions are simple-minded v/hen
they are sincerei All force is moral, for it is always
directed at the will; and whatever method of argument

42Buties of Man, pp. 88-89, 92. Mazzini's political

doctrine is one v/hich, as_ a whole, is consonant with all that is
best in Actual Idealism. it is a pity that Gentile did not
accept it as a whole, but only in fragments which lent themselves
to the support of a reality which would have horrified Mazzini.
 245

is adopted—from sermon to blackjack—its efficacy lies

only in its power to convince men in their hearts and
persuade them to agree.43
He added a footnote to the phrase about the blackjack (manganello)
v/hen the speech was printed explaining that he by no means meant
to justify sheer bullying directed to a selfish end, but the
material force of the State, normally represented by the>police
and the army, "which everyone has always admitted and respected
as moral." The squadristi stood for this force at a time v/hen
the official representatives of the State had completely failed
to face their responsibilities. As soon as their task was ful-
filled they were disbanded and given a formal legal position as
the Fascist Militia.
Considering the state of Italy at the time we may allow
that this argument possessed a certain plausibility for people v/ho
had supported Salandra's government in 1915. But its immediate
connection with Gentile's previous conclusion that "the maximum
liberty always coincides with the maximum force of the State"44
involves a deliberate ambiguity. Properly speaking the earlier
conclusion ought to mean that the more fully an individual is
able to realize the moral ideal of his ov/n personality v/ithin a

4^B.778 in B.818, pp. 50-51. It is interesting to notice

that immediately after this Gentile insists that the rulers must
recognize that the State in whose name they claim to act is not
something that they possess already, but an eternal ideal. But
how can the person on v/hom the blackjack is used be expected to
regard the man v/ho says "This is for your ov/n good. It is not I
but the law which punishes you; it hurts me more than it hurts
you"? In arrogating to itself an absolute authority of this kind
the government claims to b_e the State already.
44cf. p. 243 above. Croce was one of the first to observe
and analyse this ambiguity accurately (Critica, 1925, p. 253).
 246

community, the stronger will his loyalty to that community be.

Taken in this sense Gentile's paradoxical aphorism is t.he best
epitaph for the Fascist State that cou.ld be devised. For it
contains the reason why a State v/hich turns itself into a school-
room with the government in the role of the schoolmaster cannot
long endure: no moral individual can long continue to accept the
authority of a school in v/hich everything important is decided ,
for him. At the very least he will demand the right to change
his master and to follow a curriculum of his own choosing.

3• Constitutional Reform and the Corporate State.

Gentile himself was too thoroughly imbued with the respect
for lav/ and order of the good conservative, to feel happy about
the somewhat unorthodox way in v/hich the Fascists had come to
pov/er. His usual attitude towards Fascist violence was that it
v/as all past and done with and should not be used in criticism of
what they were doing with the power now that they had it. History
alone could decide the rights and wrongs of the seizure of power;
opponents of the new government should have patience and v/ait for
its verdict.45 <x'o revive the memory of those scandalous times
before October 1922 v/as "bad faith"—a worse violence against the
spirit than the violence of the squadristi.46
In October 1924 after his resignation from the Cabinet47

42B.837 in B.818, p. 30.

46B.834 in B.818, p. 138.
47'Gentile's personal "intransigence" combined with the
sweeping nature of his educational reforms, which aroused much
opposition and bitterness, made him a very unpopular figure; so
that in May 1924 after twenty months in office he resigned.
 247

he v/as appointed to head the Committee on Constitutional Reform.48

His public utterances as holder of this office are an eloquent
testimony of his naturally conservative attitude and his respect
for tradition. He was at pains to emphasize that the Fascists
v/ere come not to destroy the law but to fulfil it. Their aim was
to return to the true spirit of the Statute of I848 paring away
the accretions of demagogic liberalism and reinterpreting the
original in terms of the new tv/entieth century situation. He
insisted—and, so far as I have been able to discover, his insis-
tence was just—that the Statuto was not a sacrosanct document
but a living institution that must grow and be adapted: that the
Italian constitutional tradition, like the British, had alv/ays
been one of gradual modifications and adaptions. The Liberals
themselves had set up constitutional commissions on this assump-
tion; only they lacked the energy to pursue the matter to a
conclusion.4^
We have already seen that, in Gentile's view, the task of
the Left had been completed before 1915 and sealed by the War:

4tistrictly speaking there v/ere tv/o successive committees—

the first consisting of fifteen members (October-Bee ember 1924),
the second of eighteen (January-July 1925).
49B.783 in B.818, pp. 213-214. It is tempting to correlate
Gentile's insistence that the Constitution is not sacrosanct, v/ith
his doctrine that the underlying unity of the State must centre
on an incomplete and xinite personality (the King), not on a
personality complete and perfect (for instance the historical
enactment of a Fundamental Law)—cf. above, Chapter IV, pp. 18 2-
183. But I hesitate to do so because although the position that
he actually took over the Constitution is consistent with his
theory in "The Idea of Monarchy" I cannot help suspecting that
he v/ould have taken a very different attitude if it had been the
Socialists v/ho v/ere trying to adapt the Statuto to the require-
ments of a Corporate State.
 248

the masses had been brought into politics. Wow v/as the time for
a return to the principles of the Right. The constitutional
reformers therefore had two main tasks. First, they must restore
the ancient dignity and authority of the Monarchy; then they must
organize the industrial and agricultural population. This last
problem was what constituted the novelty of Fascism in relation
to the old liberalism of the Right. 20 iilie solution of this prob-
lem must be in terms v/hich were consistent v/ith the maintenance of
State authority in the person of the monarch; but there v/as no
reason to demand that only the constitutional forms originally
envisaged in the Statute should be employed.
Our society is no longer that of I848. Luring con-
ferences in v/hich the Albertine Statute was prepared,
a minister of the Crown asked whether the corporations
ought not to be given representatives in the Chambers;
and the answer v/as that the question did not arise
since there were no corporations in the Sardinian
State. At that time the problem to be resolved v/as
not that of the relations between the State and cate-
gories or classes of citizens, but between the State
and single citizens. Today the problem is
different . . . 51
Of the forces seeking to organize the masses in the pre-
Fascist era Socialism v/as the most important: through the efforts
of the Socialists the working class was transformed from a mere
aggregate into a group of corporate personalities—the syndicates
(trade unions). The task of the constitutional reformers there-
fore, as Gentile conceived it, was to take account of this
development; the trade unions must be organized v/ithin the total
framework of the great national personality—the State. Otherwise

50B.834 in B.818, p. 138; cf. B.778 in B.818, pp. 4 2-43, 52.

2lB.844 in B.818, p. 238.
the State would again be degraded into a mere instrument; the
battleground of selfish egoism on the corporate level.
Such were the premisses of the Corporate State which was
voted into existence in 1925. Some of the liberals complained
that the unity of the State was being sacrificed in this legal
recognition of a multiplicity of corporate bodies; but this was
a somewhat naive complaint to raise, at least against Fascist
syndicalism, and Gentile had no difficulty in answering it. The
syndicates of v/orkers and employers were to be controlled by the
State through bodies to which both sides v/ere subordinate, the
Corporations. Through the Corporations (which in turn were
organized under a single minister) the anarchy and division which
had formerly existed v/ould be articulated into unity. "Recogni-
tion of the Syndicates apart from the Corporative Organization
seemed to the Commission to be dangerous to the sovereignty and
power of the State about which the liberals also claim to be
concerned. ">c-
Actually the Corporations did not come into existence until
1934: while the syndicates recognized in the law of 1925 were
present realities. But no one need have feared for the authority
of the State. Authority in the Fascist State proceeded dov/n-
wards: the officers of the syndicates had to be approved by
higher authorities—in the case of the v/orkers' syndicates
they v/ere generally directly appointed. Since there was no
decadent liberal democracy there was never any danger or threat
to the unity of the State.

52
B.843 in B.818, p. 227.
 250

Gentile himself had offered a more serious objection to the

whole idea of syndicalism in criticizing a plan put forward by
the Confederation of Laboiir in December 1918.23 They proposed
to transfer the powers of Parliament to syndical committees of
experts. After remarking that this "new" idea went back to Plato,
Gentile commented that the fallacy of the idea lay in the fact
that political questions were not simply technical: no problem
could be solved simply by reference to the interest of particular •
classes. On this point he would have been provided v/ith a ready
if somewhat specious answer in 1925—the Corporate Organization.
But he remarked also that the liberty to be had in a Nation State
v/as better and richer than that v/hich was offered by the medieval
corporations: and from the point of view of Actual Idealism this
seems to me unanswerable. In the Corporate State the great
majority of citizens are assumed to be incapable of consciously
willing the State which ought to be the substantial concreteness
of their own personality. They are doomed to remain always at
the moment of self-dissociation, obeying the law of the State as
a pov/er stronger than themselves but quite foreign to their ov/n
will. This is a situation familiar and unexceptionable in tradi-
tional ilegelianism, in which the moments of the dialectic are
spatio-temporally dissociated; but it is definitely antipathetic
to the holistic spirit of Actual Idealism. Instead of providing
a challenge to the citizen to transcend his ov/n private
interests, the Corporate State encourages him to pursue them as

53B.461 in B.561, pp. 95-100; cf. B.658 in B.937,

especially p. 35.
 251

single-mindedly as possible: its OVAI interest, v/hich is quite

separate and forms the direct concern only of a governing elite
almost requires that the ordinary citizen should not concern him-
self with the common good (since he v/ould thereby weaken his own
volitional effectiveness and indirectly lessen the power of the
State). For the ordinary citizen morality should consist simply
in a loyal acceptance of the umpire's decision.
Taken as a v/hole, there is a remarkable consistency about
Gentile's political career v/hich might lead one to suppose that
his political action followed from his ov/n interpretation of his
philosophy in relation to the existing political situation. But
a careful study of his change of front in this matter of corporate
organization, may persuade us that ideas and prejudices of a not
very philosophical nature had much to do v/ith his political atti-
tude. V/hen we consider his work in its organic unity it is
apparent that his lifelong preoccupation v/as v/ith the higher
intellectual culture, and particularly with the intellectual and
literary tradition of his ov/n country. These were not interests
that the majority of ordinary people could either share or appre-
ciate. Hence his abiding distrust of democracy and, in
particular, his strong aversion to the Socialist party with its
strictly "economic" interpretation of reality and its ignorant
contempt for national tradition. It was therefore natural that
he should perceive clearly all the discrepancies between his
philosophical outlook and any programme advanced by the party of
materialists and philistines. But v/hen a similar programme v/as
presented with a different end in view it was equally natural
that he sav/ in it only a means of discipline and control for those
 252

who could not rise to higher things. The theory of the Corporate
State agreed very well v/ith his general theory of education;
especially since in his view secondary education (the stage of
philosophy and personal autonomy) was essentially aristocratic.54

4. 'Fascist' Culture.
In viev/ of his fundamental concern with the universal
interests of the republic of letters, it was peculiarly fitting
that Gentile should become the first president of the National
Institute of Fascist Culture which was established in 1925. He .
v/as the most prominent of the Fascist intellectuals; and his v/ork
in this field is the most attractive aspect of his career as a
Fascist.
In his inaugural address he urged the adoption of a posi-
tive attitude towards the nev/ Regime.
Not all the manifestations of v/hich this movement is
the cause may be pleasing: but what matters is this:
that there is a nev/ spirit . . . a fundamental note
. . . which fulfils an ancient prayer of those few
Italians who did so much in the past to illumine v/ith
glory the history of their people.55
Fascism was no enemy to democracy, as long as by democracy its
supporters meant the education of a whole people called to
participate in its ov/n government "all alike, men and women, from
the so-called governing classes to the most humble labourers".
But the vocation must be serious and sincere, and therefore the
people should be organised according to categories in which their

54Qn the Corporate State see further, Chapter VIII,

pp. 366-372 below.
55B.836 in B.937, p. 56.
ov/n life and interests are articulated, in order that the indi-
vidual may be ever more conscious of the indissoluble unity
betv/een his interests and those of society as a whole. 26
But if this ideal was to be realized Fascist intransigence
must be governed by intelligence. Considered as a nev/ spirit
Fascism was the conscience of the State; and this conscience must
not be interpreted in a partisan fashion. Fascism was a religion;
but that did not mean that those v/ho held party cards v/ere the
elect:
We are absolutely uncompromising inasmuch as we can
never give a post of responsibility or authority to a
man v/ho is utterly opposed bo the new conscience of
Italy. But may 1 be allowed to state here and now that
this is not the same as saying: to a man who does not
hold a Fascist Party card, for on the contrary, there
is no true intransigence that can be content v/ith a
card or a material distinction. But we are very
willing to compromise where a cultural or other good
that has an intrinsic value, can actually be employed
as a reliable instrument in the great work of construc-
tion, that is the mission of Fascism, A spirit of
compromise v/hich will become more pronounced day by
day, progressively as, when the second term is fulfilled,
the first term of the great Roman admonition appears
ever more opportune and more just: pareere subjectis
et debellare super00s (j'To spare the conquered and war
down the proud""jT57

Pie struck this note of conciliation and moderation else-

where also. For instance in discussing the place of Fascism in
University life he argued strongly that there should be no
attempt bo impose Fascist doctrine in the State Universities:
the universities musb be free and autonomous, and the Fascists
must have their own like the Catholics, until such time as the

56
B.836 in B.937, p. 51.
57
ibid., pp. 61-62.
 254

nev/ spirit has so deeply penetrated the consciousness of the

nation that State uiiiversities are Fascist because everyone in
them already believes in Fascism. 20 j-[e declared in the Senate
that an intellectual dictatorship was a self-contradictory
absurdity; "In the field of academic studies, science,and critical
thought, there can be no life v/ithout liberty and autonomy. "29
Similarly in the sphere of popular culture represented by
the press he insisted on the value and importance of an indepen-
dent non-Fascist press alongside the official party nev/spapers:
A precise definition of v/hat the Fascist Press is has
a significance on this condition: that the other Press
is recognized as exempt from the obligation of becoming
Fascist, and yet still capable of exercising a sane and
useful function in the organism of Italian public life.
And if that v/as the intention of the Directorate (v/hich
I do not believe can be doubted) then the Party's recog-
nition now of the non-Fascist press, following on the
recognition some months ago of the definitely respectable
part in the economy and the whole social and spiritual
life of Italy, that must be accorded to the self-
respecting Italians v/ho without holding a Fascist Party
card contribute nonetheless to the riches, the progress,
and the pov/er of the country, is a political action of
great value, and one that is destined to bear remarkable
fruit. For there must some time be an end to a certain
form of systematic polemic against the journals that
are not organs of the Fascist movement, a polemic v/hich
would tend to destroy every kind of expression of opinion
v/hich could not pretend to represent the thought of the
upper hierarchies of Fascism or of the Government. This
tendency is madness, since under the guise of the most
heartfelt Fascist zeal, it resolves into a sordid and
treacherous v/ar upon the vitality of Fascism itself.
For, when there remained no other thought, the thought
of the Party and the Regime v/ould itself die on the day
when it had absorbed everything, and had no more diffi-
culties to overcome or minds to persuade.
In conclusion, it may be not altogether superfluous
to observe that, even within the ambit of the recognized

58B.818, pp. 100-105.

59B.877 (March 1926) in B.937, p. 130.

X
 255

and registered Fascist Press, both Fascists and non-

Fascists should understand the duties of party discipline
cum grano salis . . . 60
Apart from this critical activity, Gentile's general view
of "Fascist" culture contained nothing that he had not been
preaching for years. It was the living, spiritual view of culture
as opposed to the old fashioned realism of the school v/hich
reduced culture to dead matter, a body of factual information.81
This is the concept that dominates The Reform of Education and
there is no need to discuss it here. It v/as an ideal v/hich bore
little relation to the facts, as can be judged from the more or
less complete failure to produce any 'Fascist' literature v/orthy
of the name. Some serious work v/as done in economics and politi-
cal science: but most of the books purporting to expound the
Fascist philosophy and v/ay of life contain nothing but dithy-
rhambic nonsense unworthy of critical consideration. The stile
fascista in practice v/as synonymous v/ith empty bombast.

Paradoxically enough, from the Gentilian point of view, the

one great cultural achievement for which the Fascists can claim
some credit v/as the publication of the Enciclopedia Italiana.
Gentile directed this great undertaking from its inception until
shortly before hiL; death, and he deserves much of the credit for
the fact that it v/as not fulfilled in any narrowly partisan
spirit, but objectively, without any other criterion than the
professional competence of a potential contributor. If certain
scholars, notably Croce, stood aloof it was not because they were

B.922 (February 1927) in B.937, pp. 119-120.

Cf. B.818, pp. 95-116; and B.937 passim.
 256

not invited to contribute, but because they did not choose to do

so. 62 The Enciclopedia was not produced, as Gentile himself
declared at the time of his resignation, without a hard struggle:
its history v/as "tormented by dissatisfied and factious partisans
of Fascism" but it v/as nevertheless "energetically maintained by
me on the level of a great national undertaking, in v/hich all the
most competent scholars could collaborate without any sort of
political discrimination."63 As a result it is universally
and rightly considered to be one of the greatest of the world's
encyclopaedias.

5* Ibe Boctrine of Fascism.

Volume AlV of the Enciclopedia published in 1932, contained
in its due place an article on "Fascismo". This v/as in tv/o parts,
"Boctrine" and "History", of which the second v/as written and
signed by G. Volpe. The first part of the article—the "Boctrine"
of Fascism—is again divided into two parts, "Fundamental Ideas"
and "Political and Social Doctrines": both were signed by
Mussolini. But speculation as to the truth of this attribution—
at least as regards the first section—has alv/ays been rife.
Gentile's influence v/as too apparent to be overlooked, and in the
words of Dr. Minio-Paluello: "those v/ho were closest to the
'philosopher of Fascism' in his capacity as general editor of the
Enciclopedia Italiana are sure that no mistake has been made in

°^Cf. the article by Gioacchino Volpe in Vita e_ pensiero,

Volume I, pp. 335-362.
fo
3yjta e_ pensiero, Volume IV, pp. 25, 27.
 257

attributing this section to him."°4 Perhaps it was upon some

authority of this sort that Dr. Mueller ventured to assert cate-
gorically that the philosophical section of the article was by
Gentile. 2 A definite assertion seems, properly speaking, to be
out of the question; Professor Finer took the article at face
value, and in the course of a careful and detailed textual
analysis^ detected not only the influence of Gentile but that of
Alfredo Rocco, another major theorist of Fascism. If we could
regard the presence of this second influence as established, I
should definitely agree that the article really was by Mussolini.
Indeed, when we remember that il Puce possessed an amazing
facility for absorbing the ideas of other people and using them
as window dressing, the fact that the article exhibits Gentile's
influence is very far from being proof that Mussolini did not
write it; furthermore the Puce possessed a definite style of his
ov/n v/hich is easily recognized by all who have read even a few
pages of his writings and which seems to me to be observable in
this article. Unfortunately, however, the passages in v/hich
Finer detects Rocco's influence seem to me to be, if anything,
more typically Gentilian than most others:^7 it seems quite

64i;iinio-±'aluello, op_. cit. , p. 123.

62j_,a pensee contemporaine en Italie, p. 310 fn. 1.
66i,iussolirii ' s_ Italy, part III.
b
7l do not mean to imply that these passages, and others ,
might not have been written by Alfredo Rocco; only that there is
nothing in them that could not have been written by Gentile.
Rocco v/as a Nationalist, v/ho v/as certainly guilty of the
"naturalism" for v/hich Gentile castigated the Nationalists in
March 1917 (cf. above, Chapter V, p. 197). In his Political
Doctrine of Fascism (English translation by Bigongiari in
 258

possible therefore, that Mussolini revised or rev/rote a draft

prepared by Gentile. In any case I do not propose to disciiss the
essay here. It exists in numerous English editions and no one
could improve on the commentary that Finer has already provided;
and on the other hand Gentile has given us his views in propria
persona in a v/ork of about the same time—the Origins and Doctrine
of Fascism. ^8
To a large extent v/e are already familiar with the content
of this essay. The origins of Fascism as a revolutionary movement

International Conciliation, No. 223) the Nation emerges as a sort

of transcendent deity. But in terms of objective content there
is a tremendous overlap—amounting almost to a complete coin-
cidence—betv/een his theory and Gentile's. It is only the
meaning v/hich they attach to a common assertion that varies.
Thus, Gentile might write a sentence which, coming ostensibly
from Mussolini's hand might well be understood in the sense in
v/hich Rocco v/ould have meant it. This interpretation v/ould be
just, moreover, in that it v/ould probably be closer to v/hat
Mussolini understood by it, v/hen he read it over before signing;
for it is undeniable that Rocco's theory accords better v/ith the
actual policies of Fascism. Indeed, it must be said ithat Gentile
often assumes, more or less unconsciously, in his fascist
apologias, that the State is an objective transcendent reality
rather than a subjective transcendental one.
°°'i'he principal essay (B.948) in this volume (B.1104) v/as
actually published some years earlier (in 1928) under the title
"The Essence of Fascism" in the collective volume La civilta
fascista (ed. Pomba, Turin, V.T.E.T., 1928; readers unfamiliar
with Italian should consult B.941).
The writing of this essay might seem to imply that in 1928
it was expedient that Fascism should have a definite doctrine—
although at the Bologna Congress in 19 25 Gentile had strongly
and successfully opposed any attempt to formulate one. But the
general sense of the essay is in fact still very like that of his
speech three years earlier. His explicit conclusion is that the
actions of the Puce are the real theory of Fascism (see below,
~. 250'). Thus Ee Eas at least recognized that the logical result
of a refusal to promulgate a doctrine is that only Mussolini's
interpretation of the Fascist 'spirit' matters. And so his
emphasis on the living personality, and the necessity that all
objective realities should be mediated through the individual
consciousness, leads him to a denial of all persons except one!
 259

lay, according to Gentile, in a resurgence of the national spirit

that had brought about the intervention in 1915. This had been
the first crisis in the resolution of the conflict between two
Italies whose history could be traced back to the Renaissance.fo9
In particular the intervention of 1915 was a return to the
religious patriotism of the Risorgimento. This religious spirit
had taken many different, essentially personal forms, in men as
unlike as Mazzini, Gioberti, Cavour and Manzoni. But it continued
to dominate Italian political life till 1876. With the advent
of the Left the religious ideal of the Patria gave way before a
doctrine of individualism. This individualism v/as historically
justified because the life of the Nation must reflect the real
interest of the citizens, or else it opposes itself to the
individual and is felt as a mere limit, a tyranny. Nevertheless
the underlying philosophy of the Left v/as bad; it was a negative
atomism and materialism: and this weakness in thought led to
the v/eakening of the moral fibre of the Nation, until syndicalism
and nationalism, along with the new idealism, raised the banner
of the Risorgimento again against masonry, democratic socialism,
and radical individualism.

k9Gentile deals with this "prehistory" of the Fascist

idea from Machiavelli through Vico and Alfieri to Mazzini and
Gioberti in various places (notably in B.828, B. 837, and B.931).
I have not discussed this subject because the views of the
idealist school of Fascism on this point have already been given
in English and at length by A. Lion in the first part of The
Pedigree of Fascism. Exposition v/ould therefore be superfluous.
Criticism seems to me hardly less so. In relation to his own
theory of Fascism, Gentile's interpretation of the history of
Italy possesses a certain plausibility—perhaps even a certain
validity. But, given the virtually complete divorce that alv/ays
existed between his ideal of Fascism and the actual practice of
the Fascist Government, it is simply irrelevant.
 260

The crisis of 1915-18 was not a decisive one. It was

necessary for the State to reassert its authority violently
through the Fascist squadristi; and only in 1922 did the nev/
spirit at last bear fruit. This fruit v/as a new vision of the
whole of life—Fascism is therefore totalitarian. Fascist doc-
trine is not however a philosophy in the common sense of the v/ord;
still less a religion.70 j_t has no credo of absolute dogmas.
The truth, the significance of Fascism, is not to be
measured in the special theses that it assumes from
time to time, in theory or in practice . . . Often,
having set up a target to be reo.ched, a concept to
realize, a way to follow, it has not hesitated, when
tested, to change course, and to reject as inadequate,
or repugnant to its ov/n principle, that aim or that
concept. It has never wished to bind itself, engaging
the future. It has often announced reforms, v/hen the
announcement was politically opportune, but it did not
believe that it v/as thereby committed to their execution.
The true resolutions of the Puce are those that are
both formulated and put into actual effect.71
It is odd to see how Gentile takes this extreme oppor-
tunism, which certainly v/as characteristic of Fascism, as an
application of the Mazzinian dictum pensiero ed azione. lie
is right when he says that Mazzini meant to castigate the

70B.948, p. 110; or in B.1104, p. 38.

71loc. cit. Finer gives a fairly lengthy extract includin(
this passage, as a "luminous" commentary on the opportunism of
the Fascist Regime, and remarks: ". . . i am obliged to confess
that, though 1 am sure Gentile would not joke about matters of
such high importance, his remarks have the air of sly censure;
and no one surely v/ould regard them as complimentary. " (Musso-
lini 's Italy, p. 18).
Would that it were possible to agree v/ith him! But, alas!
if any argument is needed to prove that this passage is not
ironically intended, it is provided by the close connection
which Gentile goes on to develop betv/een this doctrine and the
Mazzinian dictum. There certainly is a quality of ironic humour
about the passage: but it consists precisely in Gentile's self-
righteous unconsciousness of the outrage that he is committing
against the prophet of the Risorgimento.
 261

intellectuals v/ho divorced speech from action; Mazzini certainly

held that a real conviction must produce positive action. He
would have agreed, too, that it is the practical ideal that
matters and that in the pursuit of this ideal different policies
might well be appropriate under different circumstances. But he
v/ould have condemned wholeheartedly the proclamation of a policy,
unless and until circumstances v/ere ripe, and one v/as ready to
strain every nerve to put it into effect. Fascism, with all its
boasted anti-intellectualism, would have received and deserved
his censure as a movement sv/ollen v/ith rhetoric—if not something
much v/orse.
The anti-intellec tualism of Fascism is not, Gentile is
quick bo add, a denial of all value to intellectual ciilture—
whatever sorae ignorant Fascists may believe—but a condemnation
of the neutral attitude of 'pure' thought and 'pure' science.
Fascism itself is action guided by intelligence; like all great
spiritual realities, the political action of fascism contains an
immanent philosophy of v/hich the central notion is, in one v/ord,
the Nation.
Here again he quickly introduces a qualification. The
Nationalism of the Fascists is not that of the old Nationalist
Party, who opposed the Nation to the individual; in the philo-
sophy of Fascism Nation and citizen coincide. The Nation is not
conceived as a transcendent natural entity, but as a spiritual
reality generated in consciousness. The difference betv/een the
tv/o views is evident, for instance, in the ambiguous attitude
adopted ~by the Fascist Party towards the Monarchy, which for the
Nationalists v/as absolutely sacred. At first it seemed as if
 262

the King v/as ready to accept the liquidation of the War spirit,
and the Fascists therefore tended to favour a Republic; they only
abandoned this attitude v/hen the King showed himself av/are of his
duty to the Nation by refusing to suppress the revolution.72
Fascism is a mass movement not an aristocratic doctrine of conser-
vative legitimism.
Gentile claims that because of its recognition of this
intimacy of the Nation within the consciousness of the Fascist,
Fascism is the highest kind of democracy. "The State exists inas-
much and for as much as it gives existence to its citizens."73
Through education and propaganda therefore the Party must inform
the whole people v/ith its spirit. There are terrible difficulties
in this task:
. . . for one thing because it is virtually impossible
that the great masses, v/hich only slowly, over a period
of centuries, become educated and reformed, should become
equal to the requirements of a party of elite, a moral
avant-garde; for another thing, because of the dualism
between governmental and Party action, which can scarcely
be avoided, despite every effort and unity of discipline,
when a party organization is enlarged to ijroportions
almost equal to those of the State; or yet again, because
of the risks that every power of initiative and progress
runs, v/hen all the individuals are caught in the meshes
of a mechanism which, no matter hov/ enlivened by a single
spirit at the centre, cannot help letting all autonomy
and liberty of movement languish and die, as one passes
gradually from the centre to the periphery.74

In few places is the fundamental paradox of Gentile's personalism

72<phis is historically inaccurate. The Fascists took their

place on the extreme right of the Chamber when they first entered
Parliament in 1921. The attitude of the Monarchy can hardly be
said to have been clear at that time.
73B.948, p. 115 (or in B.1104, p. 49).
74ioc. cit.
 263

more clearly brought out. Carried to an extreme, as it was in his

Fascist writings, the emphasis on unity of personality leaves no
room in the world for more than one personal v/ill. Yet Gentile
v/as very conscious, as this passage shows, that this v/as a
dangerously equivocal position.
The means for maintaining this intimate consciousness of
the State in the minds of the citizens is provided, he goes on,
by the Corporative Organization. The citizen expresses his
historical individuality and makes his contribution to national
life through the syndicate, which thus provides a sound basis for
truly 'representative' government. V/ithin the limited community
of his special economic activity he becomes aware of the bond
between his life and that of the community as a whole: and his
activity is controlled and directed to the common good. So
that, in the Corporative system maximum immanence of the State is
secured through a combination of force and consent, spontaneity
and discipline—terms v/hich are concretely inseparable. Hence
what is called Fascist authoritarianism, is in fact the reali-
zation of liberty in its concreteness.7^
If the State is to be an ethical reality internal to the
consciousness of the citizen it follov/s (argues Gentile) that it
must express itself through a moral and religious sense of life
as a whole. Hence, although there is an essential contradiction
betv/een its ovai philosophy of immanence and the transcendent

75jiut this liberty is only 'concrete' in the Gentilian

sense—i.e. consciously felt—where the individual is a convinced
Fascist: therein lies the basic equivocation of the v/hole argu-
ment.
 264

Weltanschauung of Catholicism, Fascism has adopted a policy of

friendship with the Church which represents the religious con-
science of the Nation.
And so finally he reaches his conclusion: that, when the
polemics of both sides have been discounted, Fascism emerges as
"the most perfect form of liberalism and of democracy, in con-
formity with the doctrine of Mazzini, to whose spirit it has
re turned.."7 ^

6. The beginnings of disillusion.

- In his assertion that Fascism v/as not really anti-intellec-
tual, or anti-liberal, or anti-democratic, but stood for a higher
culture, a more profound Liberalism, and a more real democracy,
Gentile found himself increasingly alone as time went on. We
have seen hov/ in the cultural field he was obliged from the
beginning to fight for the preservation of the freedom of thought
which had always until that time been taken for granted. In this
area even he v/as obliged to recognize very rapidly how far removed
his ideal was from the reality; in the field of politics proper,
his attention was at first directed almost entirely towards the
overt opposition to the new Regime, so that he v/as hardly con-
scious of the faults and excesses of Fascism except as things to
be justified or explained av/a3r. But even then, while he was
busily insisting that the Fascists possessed all the real virtues
to v/hich the 'liberals' and the 'democrats' laid claim, he spared
a moment every now and ajain to warn the Fascists themselves

76B.948, p. 117 (or in B.1104, p. 54).

• • " ' • ' - • • - • — '

 265

that their mission was an ideal and they themselves mere erring
human beings like their opponents. At the ±>ologna Congress he
challenged his audience thus:
Can we say that v/e have always remembered to do as we
said, that v/e have always said no to our own interest
v/hen it v/as in conflict with that of our Country, that
v/e have never yielded to the enticements of our ov/n
selfish instinct, that we have omitted nothing that
would make us worthier to hold the position we desire
to hold?77
And he went on to reply to his ovai question:
Here, I believe, we are all Fascists and can make
confession among ourselves frankly. And if v/e are not
all Fascists, it does not matter, we must make the con-
fession: our intransigence is sometimes merely verbal.
Not alv/ays do we do as we say; not alv/ays do v/e practice
that absolute devotion to the ideal, which v/e preach.
Not always does that religiotio flame burn and glister,
in which we have resolved to purify the young Italian
nation in order to create a great Italy . . . We must
confess it boldly, for only this confession, made in
sincerity and humility can give value to the faith for
which v/e fight. Otherwise it falls away into rhetorical
verbalism and shameful hypocrisy.
, . . Let us not vaunt ourselves, or set OLirselves
up in our own persons as superior to our adversaries:
v/e also have a long v/ay still to travel, much refuse
still to burn in our own hearts, many inv/ard battles
still to van, much self-education still to do, before
v/e can say in all sincerity that we conceive life as
Mazzini did: that we conceive it and live it as Fascists
should. To say this and to feel it v/ill not weaken,
but rather strengthen us. Our adversaries v/ill respect
us the more; and v/hat is more important, we shall respect
ourselves the more, since to feel one's ov/n defects is
the primary condition for liberating oneself from them,
and for acquiring the pov/er required for such self-
liberation. 7 8
As organized opposi'tion to Fascism disappeared, and Gentile
found himself addressing v/hat v/as, formally speaking, a 'Fascist'
audience, this note tended to recur more and more in his speeches

77
B.8l8, p. 110.
n°
ibid., pp. 111-112.
 266

and articles: and as Fascism approached the beginning of its

second decade there v/as even a note of desperation in his
utterances as he began to look round and v/onder whether he had
not cut the ground from under his ovai feet in his enthusiastic
tirades against 'pseudo'-liberals and 'pseudo'-democrats.
His disillusion developed gradually. He had joined the
Party largely because of his enthusiasm over the educational
reform for which Fascism had at last provided the long desired
opportunity. But he soon found that "the most Fascist of the
reforms" v/as still not Fascist enough for some of his Party
colleagues. And he, who had continually preached the necessity
for life and movement in the schools, and had exalted the Fascist
Regime as a 'continuous revolution' v/as obliged to become the
defender of stability against the "gangrene of retouching"
(cancrena dei ritocchi) with which every successive minister
afflicted the new school-system. Almost every year the time-
ta.bles were revised; and gradually several of the main pillars of
his Reform v/ere whittled away. The first principle to be sacri-
ficed was that of limiting the numbers in the secondary schools.
The limit on the size of classes was lifted almost immediately;
and in 1926 provision v/as made for the setting up of classi
aggiunte in special cases.^9

79Minio-Paluello, op_. cit. , p. 117. These facts make

Gentile's attitude in his articles on "The Educational Policy of
the Regime" (Corriere della Sera, March 1929) appear somewhat
ostrich-like. He speaks of the abolition of the classi aggiunte
as "one of the most Fascist dispositions of the law of May Jo]
1923" since only a Government with its eyes fixed on the public
good could .have carried out such a policy in the face of so many
protests! (B.973 in B.1057, p. 447).
• • « ' — - ! • . " i ]".].. ,.,•,,. ... . ^ , • • ••••• . . . . . i — • { ' • —" • • • II • i i . .,--••— i. ., i . ,.,. i - i i . • ...- •

267

The freedom of the teachers was likewise of short duration.

A commission was soon set up to examine all textbooks published;
but this proved a heavy task—and the commission does not seem
to have been "politically conscious". Early in 1928 it v/as
officially decreed that all school-books must be in accord with
the spirit of Fascism; and at the end of the year it was decided
that official textbooks for the elementary schools must be issued.
These, when they arrived, v/ere of the poorest quality, since the
only criterion of selection v/as the amount of Fascism in the v/ork
submitted.
Then too, a dualism between Party and State in the field of
education rapidly and inevitably developed, v/hich placed Gentile
in somewhat of a quandary, since he had himself fervently pro-
claimed the Party's mission to educate the people. As v/e shall
see he chose to support the State, and preached patience to the
Party enthusiasts. Here too, he found that the "continuous
revolution" was in danger of getting out of hand. The Party—
probably rightly—regarded the intellectuals as among their worst
enemies; and any action taken in the educational field by the
State would have to be implemented by just these independent
intellectuals. Hence the Party had to develop its ov/n organi-
zations for the indoctrination of the young. In this v/ay they
could ultimately control the activities of the intellectuals in
the most effective way conceivable: the presence of a group of

°Oi\'iinio-Paluello, op_. cit. , p. 171. I have not been able

to discover that Gentile ever uttered a word on the subject of
the libro cli Stato. A compulsory textbook v/as something
absolutely opposed to the whole of his philosophy of education.
 268

convinced young Fascists in a class v/ould curb any expression of

independent judgement. But the encouragement of spying naturally
had a disastrous effect on discipline and on the value of the
teaching, especially at the level at which, in Gentile's viev/,
freedom v/as most essential—the University."!
Gentile made a serious, if necessarily somewhat guarded,
protest against several of these evils in a speech in the Senate
in April 1930—a speech v/hich, according to Finer, displeased
Mussolini because it was too much applauded.°d
He defended the reform of 1923 against a current (and
popular) accusation that it was not really 'Fascist' in spirit,
being governed by pedagogical rather than political consider-
ations, by saying, in effect, that Fascism v/as much more than a
political doctrine in the narrow sense, and that his work had
been guided by the essential spirit of Fascism as a total view of
life. Against the ritocchi he urged that "these are the old
style little by little reforms, boast and joy of the Governments
r
of former days." 3 uiae law must be certain if it is to be law
at all. Certainly things v/ere not perfect: perfection v/as an
impossibility—and this impossibility v/as a ground for patience
° A.
0 4
rather than continual restlessness. ' '

o-i
I t v/as only a t t h i s l e v e l t h a t t h i s method v/as i m p o r t a n t ;
a t the lower l e v e l t h e r e were p l e n t y of o f f i c i a l , governmental,
controls.
. M u s s o l i n i ' s I t a l y , p . 469..
ti
3B.99l i n B.1057, p . 458.
"4j pjci. ? p, 459. Observe how slippery and ambiguous this
principle—on v/hich the 'continuous revolution' rests—becomes
when Gentile feels inclined to take a conservative position.
 269

Coming to the "State examination", 2 Gentile insisted that

if it was not objective it was useless. lie also objected to
various other examples of relaxation of the regulations on
secondary schools,86 beiore coming to the Universities and the
problem of making the schools 'Fascist'. But it v/as here that he
made his most significant (though discreetly v/orded) protest.
The autonomy of the Universities and maximum freedom of the
students in the direction of their own education—the key prin-
ciples of 1923—must be preserved at all costs; and the attempt
to interfere with the life of the University through outside
organizations must cease:
. . . I should like to recommend the most scrupulous
care for discipline, which suffers somewhat today in
my opinion, from the effects of excessive preoccupation
on the part of Government and Party with the discipline
of professors and students, who are enmeshed in orders
and systems that upset the fundamental and, I would
say, the natural discipline of the University. For
sometimes the authority of the professors, department
heads, and even Rectors is undermined and diminished by
the prestige conferred on organizations of students and
professors, v/hich act from v/ithout on the true and
proper life of the University, which is the life of
study, in which the professors teach and the pupils
1 e a m . 87

u
5'The esame di Stato proved somewhat difficult to arrange
according to Gentile's strict standards, and successive ministers
continually relaxed the regulations 'temporarily' or by special
indulgences—employing local professors to save money, with
obvious detriment to objectivity of judgement.
°^His attack upon the relaxation of regulations governing
parificazione (the granting of "equal status" to private schools
meeting State school standards) was applauded. Since the schools
concerned were for the most part Church Schools, and since his
attitude to the very recent Concordat v/as well known, Mussolini
may well have felt annoyed.
° 7 B . 9 9 1 in B.1057, p. 487. He went on quickly—as he
almost alv/ays did v/hen he had criticism to offer—to say that the
latest decisions of the Grand Council were a step in the right
 270

Having thus suggested that Party activity in the Universi-

ties be limited, Gentile feels bound to explain just hov/ the
Fascist spirit should penetrate. His answer might be summed up
in tv/o words: patience and time.
Gentlemen of the Senate, within the school you will
find only the same life that exists outside of it; a
new national life, a nev/ public conscience may generate
a new school. But if the former halts the latter too
is arrested and stagnates . . . Therefore I tell you
that the problem of making the schools Fascist is•just
precisely the problem of making the nation Fascist.
. . . The important thing is not to confuse faith with
formula, the life of the spirit, v/ith the membership
card. The great mass of the Italians today, if v/e
consider only simple adhesion to the Regime, is Fascist;
and the same can be said of the vast majority of the
teachers. The famous Antimanifesto of 1925 belongs
to prehistory . . .
But the Regime is a banner, a programme, a prin-
ciple. Being Fascist means more than adhering formally
to the Regime and moving within its orbit. It is only
too evident that the Fascist out of fear—for there are
some of that kind, as well—is only Fascist with his
lips, or at most in his outward behaviour; but Fascism
is rather courage, or even boldness. Biscipline yes,
iron military discipline; but discipline of soldiers,
that is, men who have a conscience, a v/ill, a character,
and. therefore do not renounce themselves in a surrender
in which . . . nothing is given! The Fascist must
think, and v/ill, educate himself and do his share in the
building of the new and powerful Nation [jp atria] v/hich
cannot be a mere word, even a v/ord spoken in a loud
voice, but should be a reality: and this reality can
be born only from the sacrifice of men v/ho devote

direction—"which will certainly lead us to the pacification of

minds, the reciprocal trust, the ready and willing and sympa-
thetic ^affettuoso] recognition of the authority that ought to
dominate every school, the authority that derives from super-
iority of knowledge and intelligence which are the guiding lights
to v/hich all young minds naturally and eagerly turn, v/hen they
are not upset by disorderly passions."
It is interesting that he should .have used the phrase
pacificazione degli animi here to indicate that it was now time
to "spare the conquered"; for it became the motto of his political
activity in the last months of his life. Gentile's v/hole problem
as a Fascist was to reconcile it with the totalitarian
'religious' intransigence of Fascism.
 271

themselves to an ideal.
Fascism is a new conception, or if you will, a new
programme of life, v/hich like every programme, can only
be realized gradually as the intellectual, and above
all the moral conditions, under v/hich its realization is
possible, come into existence. And whoever has faith in
the programme must have patience, and wait serenely and
securely for the slow ripening of minds. The school
will become ever more Fascist, as the Italian people
becomes ever more Fascist, destroying the old man within
itself and educating the new one. All impatience is
sterile and makes the end more distant.°°

7. The Concordat.
The closing passage of this speech was an apologia for his
own 'Fascist philosophy' v/hich v/as at that time under a cloud
because of the recently concluded Concordat. The Lateran Pacts
of 1929 can be taken as marking the eclipse of Fascist Idealism.
In the formative years of the Regime the Idealists provided much
of Fascist theory; and Gentile's influence is quite apparent
in Mussolini's article of 1932.^9 But after 1929 it was impos-
sible for him to nourish any illusion that he v/as a power in the
1 and.
In his Reform in 1923 Gentile put into concrete operation

u8
B.991 in B.1057, pp. 468-470. In accordance with this
ideal of the gradual absorption of the nev/ spirit, and with his
dislike for external organizations operating upon the school from
outside, Gentile naturally applauded the decision to bring the
v/ork of the Balilla—the Party youth organization that concerned
itself mainly v/ith physical education—under ministerial control.
But he suggested that the absorption ought to be more complete;
the Balilla ought not to remain in an ambiguous position of semi-
independence (ibid. , p. 454). In fact the ambiguity v/as soon
resolved in a contrary sense: when it v/as found impossible to
combine State and Party functions, a new Party youth organization
was created with full independence.
OJ
Cf. above, pp. 256-258. Mussolini was quite ready to
bring his ideas into the foreground again at a time v/hen Fascism
and the Church v/ere at daggers drawn.
 27 2

the policy that he has been advocating since before the First
War. In his v/hole attitude towards religion and the Church he
remained equally true to the ideas of his Liberal past.90 But
after a few years he found that the equilibrium that he had
envisaged v/as not being maintained. The Catholics were clam-
ouring that if dogmatic religion was true in the primary schools,
it was true i.n the secondary school; and they were hardly likely
to rest content v/ith Gentile's reply that precisely because it
was true in the former it was not true in the latter.91
There was a slight wavering in his attitude on the Roman
qLiestion however. His concern was always to preserve the
sovereign autonomy of the Italian State. Hence any solution of
the Roman problem based on international intervention or
guarantee of any kind was, for him, out of the question: and he
had always conceived the aim of the clericals in these terms.
V/hen the idea of a bilateral settlement v/as mooted he was non-
plussed; while still inclined to insist that no surrender of
territorial sovereignty v/as possible, he rested his case mainly

90on the one hand Religion must have a central place in

elementary education—"In this field also I have not awaited the
March on Rome in order to think what 1 think" (B.832, 1925, in
B.818, p. 163, or in B.937, p. 3 8 ) : but on the other hand, "The
whole education of the Italian people should be religious; but
once the germs of a positive doctrine have been planted in the
minds of the young, there is need for liberty: full and complete
liberty of thought . . . " (B.942, 1928, in B.937, p. 199). And
in the wider field of politics any attempt to resolve finally the
conflict betv/een State and Church would be contrary to the highest
interests of both (cf. B.912, 1927, in B.937, pp. 182-188).

91B.944 (1928) in B.937, pp. 201-205. The Minister of

Education had in effect surrendered the Gentilian principle some
time before by permitting optional classes in religion to be held
i.n secondary schools. (See B. A. Binchy, Church and State in
Fascist Italy, Oxford University press, 1942, p. V?0~) .
 273

on the argument that it v/as contrary to the Church's interests to

accept corporeal existence at the hands of a National State.92
In viev/ of his often repeated opinion that reconciliation
v/ould be a misfortune for both sides, he must have felt rather
unhappy when the conclusion of the Treaty and Concordat was
announced. But he greeted the Treaty as a great achievement of
Fascist diplomacy because it seemed to him that the Church had
in all essentials accepted the authority claimed by the State in
1870, by recognizing the Kingdom and agreeing to a purely
domestic settlement of the problem. About the Concordat he spoke
coolly, striking a note of warning. Talc en literally, it v/as a
direct contradiction of his whole philosophy of politics; he
insisted therefore that it was not to be taken literally:
The Concordat . . . although it is inseparably con-
joined with the Treaty is an act of quite a different
nature . . . a programme, that will get the precise
significance that it actually receives from the v/ay in
which it is put into execution; and the mere v/ords
therefore would tell little to one who did not begin
by considering that on the State's side it has been
concluded and will be executed by the Puce of Fascism,
v/ho is the most vigilant sentinel of tEe essence and
the inalienable characteristics of the modern State . . .
The Church was drawn . . . to the Treaty by the
Concordat; and the State was drawn to the Concordat
by the Treaty. From this the direction of our future
ecclesiastical policy, which must give concrete content
to the clauses of the Concordat, follov/s by logical and
historical necessity. The juridical formula of the
Concordat is not to be judged by the standard of the
old liberal ideologies, v/hich might persuade one to
see the sovereignty of the State diminished in its
most delicate and vital part therein. I am referring
in particular to the clause concerning matrimony and
its annulment, to that which conerns religious instruc-
tion with a programme of v/hich the State will not be
absolute arbiter, and to other clauses, v/hich some of
the newspapers have reported. All of them are clauses,

92B.912 and B.912 bis (1927) in B.937, pp. 182-195.

 274

which in themselves and independently of the criteria

and the spirit with v/hich they are to be applied, are
without significance.93
He spoke thus because, in his viev/, the Fascist State could
not abdicate its sovereignty over v/hole aspects of the national
life; such an abdication was contrary to the logic of history and
could only lead to disaster: and the stormy history of the
Concordat in its early years proved him right—a fact which he
v/as not slow to emphasize.94 Nevertheless the teaching of

93B.970 in B.1104, pp. 95-96.

94B.1027 in B.1104, pp. 98-103. in discussing the aftermath
of the Concordat Prof. Binchy writes: "Many Fascists began to
feel somewhat ashamed of their early transports, and those v/ho
had already committed themselves in print must have regretted
their excessive haste, as it gradually dawned on them that their
masters had quite other ideas. u-entile, for example v/as chagrined
to discover that he might have spared himself such an ignoble
expression of servility as his article written immediately after
the settlement, in which this arch-opponent of Reconciliation
recanted everything that he had been preaching for the last three
years." (op_. cit. , p. 198). But this is a misrepresentation.
Gentile recanted nothing. In view of the fact that the Lateran
Treaty was, by universal consent, a considerable concession to the
Italian State he can hardly be blamed for abandoning some of his
more extreme contentions about national sovereignty and the Lav/
of Guarantees; v/hile towards the Concordat his antipathy v/as
always clear. He reconciled himself to it only in an interpre-
tation that was quite unacceptable to the Church. He v/ould not
have reprinted his article of 1929 alongside his triumphant "I
told you sol" of 1931 (the article referred to at the beginning
of this note) if Binchy's view were correct. The later essay
refers back to the earlier in no uncertain terms: "We v/ere not
among the enthusiasts of the Concordat, and we did not delay a
day to consider it as the condition by v/hich the treaty of con-
ciliation v/as made possible, and to say clearly that it v/as not a
point of arrival but a point of departure. A popular proverb
employed by good sense in the regulation of private relationships
teils us: clear contracts mean long friendship. One cannot truly
say that the friendship that was sealed in the Palace of the
Lateran on February 11, 1929 has been very long. So then, the
contracts were not clear." (B.1104, pp. 100-101). Binchy might
retort that it v/as only in the Gentilian interpretation that the
Concordat v/as not clear, and that the Fascists had no right to
sign it if they did not mean to execute its provisions. I agree.
But the point is that Gentile did not siL;n it and never v/ould have
 275

Religion v/as actually introduced in the secondary schools and the

teaching of philosophy v/as brought into line v/ith it. Thus the
whole spirit of the Reform of 1923 v/as abandoned.
In the brief 'honeymoon' that followed the conclusion of
the Concordat, the small group of 'Catholic Fascists' occupied
the limelight, and Gentile with his idealist philosophy of
Fascism, v/hich v/as anathema to the Church, was pushed into the
shadov/s. It v/as against this background that he finished the
speech in the Senate in April 1930, which we have already referred
to. He protested against the general distrust of philosophy that
was current in certain Fascist circles; the voicing of this dis-
trust v/as, of course, a philosophy in itself "but it v/ould be
desirable for the prestige of our country and for the honour of
Fascism that certain things should neither be uttered nor listened
to."95 Certainly Fascism was a new spirit, not the philosophy of
a particular school; but it v/as necessary to meditate upon this
new spirit and to understand it. In order to be an active pov/er
Fascism must be determinate and have a definite doctrine and
principle of its own.9° Hence it v/as unreasonable, argued
Gentile, for his adversaries to deny his right to form a personal
conception of the spirit of Fascism. It was unjust, furthermore,

done so. Faced with a fait accompli he gave to it the only signi-
ficance that it could have for him.
95B.991 in B . 1 0 5 7 , p. 471.

""This argument was directed at the Minister of Education,

Balbino Giuliano, who had taken a leaf from Gentile's own book,
and exploited the ambiguities of the dialectical method against
him by arguing that Fascism had no philosophy but contained all
philosophies v/ithin itself dialectically!
 276

to regard him as an anti-clerical: his record at the congress of

secondary schoolteachers in 1907 and ever since stood against the
libel, and his opinions on the subject were still unchanged.
. . . We have sincerely applauded the Treaty and the
Concordat that had made it possible and should establish
it ever more firmly in our minds. But v/e did not
believe—and we v/ere given the most solemn assurance
of this both here and in the other branch of Parliament
— t h a t there could ever arise from those Accords any
menace either to the State as it is nowadays understood
by all, and especially by the Fascists, v/ho have poured
out their ov/n blood in order to restore the consciousness
of the Italian nation; or to culture, by which I mean
knowledge [Iscienza] or thought, v/hich is the very fount
through which the State rises to attain its ov/n
consciousness.97
On the basis of this affirmation Gentile concluded his
speech by reiterating his view of the Concordat:
State and Church are two totalitarian regimes.
Their accord can only be derived from self-limitations;
and the party that is not disposed to limit itself,
but wishes to have everything its ov/n v/ay, and concedes
nothing to the right of the other side, the party that
hedges itself with rigid intolerance, prepares difficult
days for the Concordat,
. . . the Catholic religion is . . . the profound
religion of the Italians which it is right to revive
and cultivate.
But this religion does not prevent us, nor can it
ever prevent us from revering at the same time our
Country and living for it (living for the ideal that
sums up all the highest ideals of our life)' . . .
If in some of the forms of religion, in some of the
attitudes of the Church through v/hich it has life, v/e
perceive that a need of this our moral life, the only
life that is possible for us, is ignored, are we to
submit or deviate from our course? The world has
advanced because, whenever it has been necessary, all
men have been ready to appeal from the external and
visible Church to the invisible one, and from the God
of the Church to the God of their ov/n conscience .98

97B.991 in B.1057, p. 475.

9ojbid. , p. 477. The concluding paragraph, v/hich is in wany
v/ays typical of Gentile's attitude towards religion, makes the
unfairness of many of his criticisms of Protestantism apparent.
 277

8. Vox clamantis.
His own unpopularity and the charges hurled at him by the
Catholics seem to have been instrumental in persuading Gentile
that possibly Fascism v/as not quite as liberal as he had claimed
in earlier years. He began to feel that perhaps the virtues he
had claimed for the Fascists had really belonged to their despised
opponents and that the nev/ elite was inclined to overlook certain
aspects of the truth which their predecessors had understood.
In March 1931 he v/rote an article for the review Politica
sociale entitled "Current Ideologies and Easy Criticisms" in
v/hich his disquiet was scarcely concealed. He begins by admitting
that a political movement must have its myths, for only through
them do its ideas become forces. But these myths must not become
ossified into dogmas: the party must keep its critical faculty
alive and adapt its myths to changing situations. Pie offers two
examples: the myth of the State and the 'anti-democratic' myth.
In dealing v/ith the first of these examples he takes the
opportunity to point out that his critics among the Catholics are
more disposed towards *Statolatry' than he is:
Since 'Catholic Fascism1, a more or less dangerous
and heretical faction in the bosom of Fascism, has come
into fashion, some people are telling us, in tones of
great penitence, how necessary it is that v/e should not-
let ourselves be attracted by the diabolic philosophy
of the Ethical State: but whatever differences of
opinion there may be among Fascists, it is a common-
place v/hich no Fascist v/ould dream of denying, that the
State is everything and the individual nothing; that
the State creates the iudivid±xal and not vice versa as
the contract theory and individualistic liberalism
held; or at least that the State is prior and the
individual comes after.99

99B.1021, p. 169.
 278

It, is easier (even for 'Catholic Fascists') to assert this Fascist

myth against the liberals than to consider the liberal viev/ care-
fully and sift out the element of truth in it. But in fact the
myth is a half-truth which may become dangerous.
. . . Hence it does not have absolute value; for after
having conquered individLialism, we must still do it
justice, and recognize the aspect of truth to which it-
directed attention exclusively. And in conclusion, if
it is not true that the State is created by the indi-
vidual, it is not true that the individual is created
by the State either; and in order to understand the
truth of the matter we must ascend again from the
dualism of the tv/o terms 'State' and 'individual' to
their unity, in v/hich both coincide and the State is no
longer that imaginary Leviathan that is above the
individual and swallows him up; but rather it is within
him and realizes his internal principle in that uni-
versal will, v/hich is the profound essence of the human
individual.100
Similarly the Fascists are in danger of sinking into arid
dogmatism in their opposition to 'democracy'. Wot every form of
democracy or self-government is foreign to Fascism, for the
Revolution v/as certainly not a re-burn to the principle of the
Bivine Right of the governors. It v/as a popular movement and
although it had reached a dictatorial form it expressed the
national v/ill. In fact the Nation had never possessed such a
degree of freedom and self-mastery before, being now "liberated
from little plutocratic oligarchies and artificial soci-al struc-
tures." Fascism sot up the liberty of the. nation as the only
real liberty, in contrast to the presumed liberty of the indi-
vidual "not becaxise one can deny the latter for the sake of the
former, but because the true liberty of the individuals coincides

1°°B.1021, p. 169
 279

with the liberty of the Nation. '»1°1 j<<0r this last is not some-
thing factual but is realized in the hearts and minds of individ-
uals who serve it and represent it. The Fascists should
understand this ideal source of State authority before condemning
democracy out of hand. "So then we must revise certain concepts
and not abandon ourselves without reflection, to over-facile
criticisms."102
In general, we may say that in this article of 1931 the
"great Roman admonition" (pareere subjectis et debellare super-
bos) , to which Gentile had referred in .his inaugural address to
the National Institute of Fascist Culture six years before,l°3
v/as given speculative significance as an expression of complemen-
tary moments in the dialectic of history. His view that the time
had 'now come to attend to the first part of the admonition v/as
based upon his interpretation of certain developments in Party
and State that had taken place since 1925.
From the beginning he had always drawn a careful distinction
betv/een Fascism as a reality (the Party) and Fascism as an ideal
(the Regime). When the Grand Council of Fascism was given a
central position in the Constitution of the State in 1928 this
distinction appeared to be hardly tenable any longer, since the
Party had become the State. But Gentile neither condemned the
new legislation nor abandoned the distinction. He argued that the
separation of powers had been maintained in the early years

101
J3.1021, p. 170.
102loc. pit. (the closing sentence of the article).
10
3see above p. 253.
 280

because of the revolutionary character of the new movement; the

Fascist leaders recognized that the "Regime" would only triumph
through a gradual conquest of the national life mirrored in a
progressive "constitutionalization" of the revolutionary force.104
This process v/as approaching completion because the unity of Party
and Nation was now no longer virtual but actual, and it must
therefore be explicit. "Not just the Party only but the whole of
Italy is Fascist. "105 j^-^ a t the same time, the identification
v/as not and could never be complete or the Party would lose its
raison d' eHre. The great task of educating the mass of the people
in the new spirit must continue. And furthermore a "partisan"
interpretation of the meaning of this identity must at all costs
be avoided. Now that the Party no longer faced criticism from
without it was doubly necessary that it should be self-critical.
The popular comparison of the Party to the Catholic Church should
be understood in the light of Gioberti's remark that there are
as many Catholicisms as there are Catholics .106 '^iie Regime must
be the common ideal: it could not be imposed.
Herman Finer quotes a speech of Gentile's delivered in
November 1931 in which he enlarged on this theme in what v/as, in
view of the general situation in Italy, quite a bold and trenchant
manner:
. . . The Italian people is Fascist in its entirety;
and the retarders have been swept off the road on v/hich

104B.943 (February 1928) in B.1104, pp. 72-73 fn.

1Q
2B.995 (1930) in B.1104, p. 83.
106B.976 (1929) in B.1104, p. 89; cf. B.837 (1925) in
B.818, pp. 10-11.
 281

the people may freely march. This people may march,

but it will only march if it is disciplined. And
discipline cannot be exterior if it is not also an
interior discipline; a discipline of the spirit,
because in the first place a discipline of the thoughts.
Even as baptism does not suffice to make a Christian
a Christian, the membership card does not make a Fascist
be a Fascist. He also needs grace which v/ill help him
today, and tomorrow, and will never abandon him. He
has need of education, and auto-education, of a con-
tinuous effort of perfectioning by means of practice
and by means of reflection. Because one disagrees
v/ith one's adversaries, and because one argues with
them, and one tries to be in the right. But it may be,
and among living men, there is, and I should like to say
that it is good that there shall be, disagreement also
with one's friends. Even among the most faithful members
of the same Party there are divergencies of opinion; and
it is understandable that not all of them can be right.
It is necessary to discuss, to criticize what at the
first glance appears to be right: to hear the reasons
of those that doubt us and think differently. Through
this discussion, this criticism, this exchange of
correction, every one of us may succeed in effectively
conquering himself and [of] being, in fact Fascist.
Even here to presume to be what one pretends to be is to
preclude the possibility of becoming it. It is necessary
instead always to doubt oneself, and always to feel
inferior to the ideal that floats before us . . .107

The only other Italian who dared to utter this sort of thing
publicly was Benedetto Croce. Mien we remember this, the dry
comment of Finer himself gains an additional significance as a
reflection upon Gentile's lack of political acumen:
. . . John Stuart Mill himself would not have been
dissatisfied v/ith the full implications of Gentile's
arguments in favour of doubt and criticism. They do
honour to Gentile; if they v/ere in being they would
scarcely give continued life to Fascism.108

107piner, op_. cit. , pp. 24-25. (I have bracketed one

obvious error). t give the quotation in his translation because
I have not succeeded in identifying his reference (Inaugural •
Address to the Second Congress of the Institutes of Fascist
Culture, November 1931, Tipografia del Senato, Rome, 1932, p. 9)
Bellezza has no record of any speech in connection with the
I. N. F. C. either in 1931 or 1932.
l°8loc. cit.
' " ' " • " ' " " ' » " " * •

282

Ln 1927 the great Charter of Labour had been promulgated;

and in the succeeding years the Grand Council set about the task
of building the Corporate State on this foundation. In the
process a rift was revealed among the supporters of the Regime.
On the one hand there were the Conservatives who defended the
freedom of enterprise guaranteed hy the Charter; on the other,
the Fascist Syndicalists who had more than a dash of genuine
Socialism in their mental composition. The latter wished to
make the Corporations the real foundation of the new Fascist
State, while the former desired to reduce them to purely tech-
nical and advisory bodies, simple instruments of the Government.
Gentile summed up the situation thus:
On the one side there is a tendency to deny the
ethical substance of the State, and hence the State
itself: on the other a tendency to deny its economic
content; that content which it is the merit of Fascism
to have perceived and indicated clearly.109
He v/as clearly somewhat inclined towards the conservative view,
though he recognized that the Corporate State must be more than
a mere facade.110 But here again his principal concern v/as to
persuade the Party leaders that the existence of this disagree-
ment v/as healthy: it should be "watched over, but not suppressed
or deplored. " H I

109B.974 in B.1104, p. 86.

HOThe idealist school v/as in general associated with the
Fascist Left in this matter; and Gentile was sometimes thought to
have sponsored views more extreme than those v/hich he actually
held. But v/hile denying personal responsibility for the opinions
of his younger disciples he readily supported and defended them
against the charge of "Bolshevism". (Cf. B.1073).
H I B . 976 in B.1104, p. 89.
 283

But his plea for a measure of freedom fell on deaf ears.

All his past arguments concerning the religious spirit in edu-
cation began to take their revenge upon him. Nothing brings out
the ambiguous nature of his relations v/ith the Party in the early
years more clearly than his anxious protests against the revolu-
tionary zeal of the first generation of young Fascists. He
discovered, to his disgust, that in their eyes he and his philo-
sophy belonged to the v/orld which Fascism had vanquished. The
bitterness of this realization v/as sharpened by his recognition
that his own Mazzinian polemics had in no small measure contri-
buted to this result. It seemed to him in 19 3 3*1--1-2 that the
younger generation had fallen a prey to two dangerous illusions.
One party v/anted to jettison even the living past altogether, and
looked always forv/ard to a culture that v/as to be really new and
truly Fascist; the other sought to revive a past v/hich Gentile
regarded as decently dead and buried, through a return to the
authority of the Roman Catholic Church and a fully 'religious'
conception of life. For both £>arties the great idealist revival
was already a subject of purely academic interest. Gentile is
constrained to v/onder whether his quarrel with Croce may not
have something to do with this.
Even the bitter polemics fought out in these last
years, betv/een the leaders of thought fmaestri"*} v/ho
prior to the War and the advent of Fascism had marked
out a way for the nev/ generations of the early
twentieth century . . . have shaken the authority
that is wont to be for the young the primary factor
in deciding their choice of leaders and hence in the
direction of their culture.H3

H 2 B . 1085 in B.1139, pp. 341-361.

l13jDid., p. 359.
The new Fascist culture can never be achieved, he concludes, with-
out reverence for the past along v/ith an abiding belief in the
free creative pov/er of human reason.
The Abyssinian War naturally drew his attention away from
the Fascist policies at home which caused him so much discomfort,
to the world of foreign affairs. Here he saw nothing but good;114
but even in the midst of a paean in praise of Fascist imperialism
he spared a few moments to utter some v/ords of doubt about the
general trend of educational policy and to give tv/o fairly
specific warnings. In the first place discipline must be volun-
tary and not coerced:
. . . if v/e do not take care, discipline, instead of
being, as it ought to be, a free adherence to an
authority capable of interpreting our ov/n inv/ard
needs, may be converted into external formal obedience,
a lie and a source of corruption, the fount of that
vile hypocrisy which is the ruin of the character.
This is a most serious danger against which it is by
no means easy to guard in a rigid organization of great
masses. H 5

And in the second place the religious revival, if carried to

extremes, v/ould mean
subjecting the national culture once again to the
routine mechanical observances [forme praticistiche
e me c can! che l' of an outward religiosity and to the
consequent limitations of inv/ard spiritual liberty J
— " . I -!*•_._ • I. .!_ • _ _S- • _ 1 • • 1 -1 "I • 1_ - . . .1

from v/hich the Italians have laboured for centuries

to redeem themselves . . .116

-L-L4gee the following section; pp. 292-296 below.

-L-'-^B.1144 in B.1139, p. 385. His v/ords are much clearer
here than in the speech of 1930 (see above p. 269). But whereas
then Gentile was defending himself against the suspicion of oppo-
sition to the religious settlement, here he has just completed an
enthusiastic endorsement of the Fascist V/ar.
loc. cit.
 285

In 1936 another principle of the Gentile Reform was aban-

doned: the autonomy of the Universities was taken av/ay and they
returned to the sphere of direct ministerial control; and about
the same time official recognition v/as withdrawn from the Fascio
di educazione nazicnale, the group of idealist educators who had
for the most part joined the Party with Gentile. •*-' Here at last
Gentile's patience broke. He v/as convinced that in the Univer-
sities at least, freedom v/as of more importance than perfect
discipline. 11 °' He v/as willing to admit that the situation in the
Universities was not as good as it might bel-^-9 t)Ut the suggestion
that they coLild not manage their own affairs roused him to some-
thing very like wrath, and in 1937 he began to protest against
the v/hole tenor of educational policy.
A series of brief communications signed "A. Z." and
"Giacomo di Chabannes, signor di La Palisse"-*-20 appeared in
Leonardo, a literary review edited by Gentile's son Federigo.
Their real origin v/as quite apparent from the first, and at the
end of his polemic Gentile acknowledged his authorship. In the

1
-7Minio-Paluello , op_. cit. , p. 67.
-^°In 1933 he had protested strongly against a proposal to
introduce compulsory curricula. Cf. B.IO87.
1]
-9cf. B.1085 in B.1139, pp. 341-361.
1
2 0 j a c ^ u e s ci_e chabannes, Sieur de la Pallisse (c. 1470-1525)
was a Marshal of France under Francis I, and accompanied the
latter on .his Italian campaigns. He was killed at the battle of
Pavia in 1525. Shortly after his death his soldiers composed a
song intended in his honour v/hich made his name proverbial as a
purveyor of obvious truths or platitudes on account of the
naivete of two lines v/hich survived:
Un quart d'heure availt sa mort
II etait encore en vie.
 286

first of these communications he attacked the nev/ regulation of

the Universities. The State, he argued, should deal with special
problems through an appropriate delegation of authority. In the
sphere of the higher culture the Universities themselves v/ere the
best guardians of its interest.
The truth is that the authority and the power of
the State circulates throughout the whole organism in
which it is articulated and determined as a diversified
and ever more richly varied complex of functions and
correlative organs. And anyone v/ho puffs up the head
by making the trunk and limbs lean and hungry, had
better be prepared to see that great head rolling in
the dust sooner or later.121
The second short article, Vox clamantis, although still
primarily concerned v/ith the University reforms, voices his dis-
illusion over the v/hole field of Fascist educational and cultural
policy:
After the reform, the counter-reform.
A Fascist reform of the schools, the most Fascist
of the Fascist reforms. .But then a counter-reform more
Fascist still, superlatively Fascist: Fascist in
content, not merely in form or method. For, to listen
to the authors and supporters of the counter-reform,
the programmes at least, of the first reform were not
inspired by Fascism of the purest and most authentic
variety. Indeed (and why not?) they might be considered
worthy of a. school that v/as more liberal than Fascist.
A school liberal in its respect for all the forms of
culture, and in its humanist character, v/hich is the
essence of true ctilture; liberal in its respect for
the spontaneous inclinations of the pupils in all
kinds of schools, in so far as these inclinations are
not accidental arbitrary preferences but a universal
expression of human nature; and hence liberal in the
freedom of study frielle facolta di studio"] accorded
to University students, and the f*reedom in organization
of studies assigned to Universities; liberal in short
in the limits imposed on the inspecting and controlling
activities of the higher authority, v/hich can and should
watch over the school without upsetting it by its
intervention. . . .122

1 2 1 j ^ i r 7 5

122
B.1176.
 287

Certainly the original reform v/as liberal. But in their eagerness

to wipe out the shame of its liberalism, the authoritarian
reformers were falling into a formalism, that v/as far more
terrible. They were again reducing education to the satis-
faction of formal requirements, the passing of examinations.123
". . . the new system carried to its extreme implications might be
Fascist, but its Fascism v/ould suffocate life. " We must have done
with this reduction of discipline to outward obedience.
. . . And to begin with let us have done v/ith the
mythology of this insolent anti-Fascist Liberty: v/hich
is a stupid fable, like that of the notorious enmity
betv/een Fascism and culture-, v/ith which it makes a
pair. Come now, a little extra understanding does harm
to nobody. Myths, by all means; but let them be bene-
ficial myths, not poisonous ones.
The reformers paid no heed however; there v/as talk of
abolishing the separate organic units of the reformed secondary
school system and extending the v/eakness of the liceo scientitleo
by establishing a unified lower course for all secondary
schools.124 This v/as a serious threat to the classical glnnasio-
liceo, and to the traditional humanism that had hitherto dominated
Italian education. It seemed to Gentile that the Fascists, v/ho
had come to power in order to preserve the national tradition,
were now about to betray it and revive the prewar Socialist
ideal of a 'democratic' educational system.125

123i-ie pointed out some of the fallacies ^nd absurdities

inherent in this reduction in a later communication (B.1178).
4(-entile remarks that, for his part, he would have set
up a ginnasio scientifico if he had had the financial resources
available to later Ministers (B.1177, p. 119).
125
B.1177.
 288

This aspersion did not pass unchallenged. The supporters

of the unified school retorted, in the best Gentilian fashion,
that it v/as the spirit in v/hich a programme was executed that
counted—a scuola unica fascista was not at all the same as the
s CLIP la unica of pre-War years. Whereupon Gentile came forward
as the champion of simple common sense and reported that, in the
opinion of his friend the Sieur de la Palisse, facts were facts
and there was no getting av/ay from them.-*-2" One wonders v/hat he
would have said if his opponents had employed the naive French
nobleman against some of his theses.
His opponents asked if he wished to remain forever wedded
to the inviolable principles of 1923; and they challenged him
furthermore to abandon the pose of anonymity and come forward
openly. In reply the Sieur de la Palisse spoke for himself,
declaring that there v/as surely no one in Year XVI of the Fascist
Era
so naive as to pretend that we should still stand firm
eternally on the immortal principles of the so-called
Gentile Reform. For I have heard that this same
Gentile, being busy with other business, is far, very
far indeed, from the thoughts of time gone by; he never
speaks of his reform, and never wishes to hear it
spoken of; and v/hen someone asks him his opinion on
scholastic affairs, he shrugs his shoulders and
excuses himself thus:- For the love of Heaven, parce
sepulto1127
In January 1938 under the heading "Bichiarazione . . . . Lapaliss-
iana" Gentile finally acknov/ledged that the protests were his. 128

126B.1179.
1
27 B .1180.
12
8j3.n9o.
 289

Thereafter his criticisms - ceased: and v/hen Bottai's

'School Charter' containing the principles of the new Fascist
education, v/as promulgated in 1939 he was once again ready and
willing to make the best of things. On invitation he wrote an
article about the Charter for the Corriere della Sera.129 He was
somewhat reluctant to express his opinion becaiise, as he said:
. . . for several years I confess that I have made it
my policy not to open my mouth again on this subject.
In fact I have dedicated so many years of my life to
educational questions, that I can surely claim the
right to think about something else in the years that
remain to me . . .130
But this resolve could not prevent him from expressing the sense
of relief that he felt when he was finally able to read the much-
heralded Charter. The rumoured reform ab imis had not material-
ized. "One should congratulate His Excellency Bottai the
Minister of Education . . . above all because his Charter, all
things considered had spilt little blood." According to Gentile
the Charter v/as a continuation of the spirit of humanism. 131 *i!he
principle of rigorous selection for the Classical Lyceum and the
'academic' faculties of the Universities v/as maintained, and the
State's responsibility for the total moral and intellectual
formation of its citizens v/as reaffirmed!32 i n the provision for

1
29jj#i213. For a critical discussion of the School Charter
see Minio-Paluello, op_. cit. , part IV.
^ 3 0 A s a n explanation of his policy of silence, the last
sentence can scarcely be taken seriously. The Sieur de la Palisse
v/as nearer to the truth (see p. 288). Gentile's silence v/as the
silence of despair.
1
31jft_ most dubious assertion. The primary novelty of the
Charter lay in its emphasis upon manual labour as an essential
part of the curriculum in all schools.
1
32_£LS if that principle was ever threatened by any Fascist:
 290

inspection of private schools, and the lengthening of the period

of compulsory schooling. The spirit of the Riforma Gentile lived
on in the nev/ Charter.
Even the scuola media unica v/as a development in accordance
v/ith this spirit, "at least in the purpose for v/hich it is being
instituted." The introduction of Latin into the curriculum of
all the secondary schools had virtually created it.
There was, indeed, an advantage in the old distinction,
v/hich it has been decided to renounce in view of the
benefits which, it is believed, may be promised as a
result of the fusion and unification of all the pre-
paratory courses.
This advantage v/as that under the old system the differentiation
of a particular type of culture took place gradually in a single
institution dominated (at least ideally) by a single spirit. But
this was a minor detail. The really bad thing about the old
scuola unica had been that it meant the abolition of Latin; where-
as the nev/ Fascist version v/as founded on it. 133
Again, in the matter of the esame di Stato, the principle
was preserved; and that was the essential thing:
. . . Nor am I inclined to despondency because the
majority of the examiners is constituted, according
to the Charter, from among the teachers of the same
school in which the pupils are prepared. Everything,
in fact, will depend on the seriousness with v/hich
the two members of the committee added by the Minister
are chosen; for without doubt tv/o committee members
v/ho are good, I mean capable and conscientious, will

-5JIn 1909 he condemned the proposal of a scuola media

unica with Latin—v/hich he had later "virtually" adopted as he
loere says—as a compromise v/hich was based on no principle, and
only introduced confusion. It v/as "hybridism"—an attempt to
serve "tv/o masters. His opinion then was that if it v/as admitted
that Latin ought to be retained, the principle of the classicists
was granted and there could be no grounds for excluding Greek.
(B.217 in B.813, pp. 137-138; cf. above Chapter III, p. 79).
 291

be worth a thousand times more than a whole committee

of outside judges nominated at random . . .
More than lav/s the schools need good administration; even under
bad lav/s a school can prosper given the right spirit in their
interpretation.
All this is little more than the fox insisting that the
grapes v/ere sour; and even so, Gentile could not quite reconcile
himself to the substitution of special entrance examinations for
the different faculties of the University, in place of the former
comprehensive "maturity" examination. However good the intention
might be, he felt that only a miracle could produce good results
from this change. He also expressed a pious hope that the
promised "experimental didactic centres" did not mean a return to
the old formal 'pedagogics' that he had abolished and still
regarded as decently dead and buried.
About the new emphasis on manual labour—v/hich was a
cardinal point of the Charter—he expressed himself in a somev/.hat
guarded fashion. With "intelligent and discreet" programmes and
methods of execution, the idea of associating manual labour with
intellectual education was an "excellent" one—it is apparent
that he had grave doubts as to whether these pre-conditions would
be fulfilled.-
in the light of this article on the School Charter it is no
surprise to find that Gentile voted for the institution of the
scuola. unica v/hen the law implementing that article of the Charter
was proposed in the following year. In his brief speech on
that occasion J 4 he repeated all his reasons for regarding the

134}3,i232 (given in the form of an indirect report in

 292

new secondary school system as a continuation of the traditional

humanism. At the very beginning he emphasized that he v/as a
staunch supporter of the nev/ lav/; as a loyal Fascist he could do
no less, since as he said himself it was only a particular appli-
cation of the School Charter v/hich had already been approved, and
therefore could not be discussed. But it is embarrassing for a
sympathetic reader to see that he was constrained to repeat this
assertion several times in a very short speech v/hich contained
only one or two minor technical suggestions and a hesitantly
expressed doubt of the wisdom of trying to make the three year
course of the scuola unica an independent and autonomous v/hole
from the administrational point of viev/. The abjectness of this
speech is a scathing commentary on the high hopes with v/hich as
Minister of National Education he accepted the tessera of the
Fascist party in 1923.

9• Fascist Imperialism.
From the very beginning Fascism had exhibited a strong
tendency towards national egotism, and a readiness to resort to
force v/hich was almost certain to lead to imperialist expansion
in the long run. Gentile v/as not alarmed at this prospect; it
v/as after all a cardinal tenet of his philosophy that the
essential character of the Spirit was only fully realized in the
unrestricted activity of the Nation State; to that end the
individual must be ready to sacrifice everything. He v/as always
inclined to glorify v/ar, because it brought home to the individual

G. Bottai, La nuova scuola media, Florence, Sansoni, 1941,

pp. 88-90).
 293.

that this sacrifice was his highest moral duty, and therefore the
supreme realization of his own moral personality;135 So that he
willingly accepted and supported the Fascist doctrine of 'war-
mindedness' as a means of keeping this consciousness alive. But
words v/ould not maintain it for long v/ithout deeds. In 1931 he
declared that just as the ideal of nationalism led to the break-
down of Empires, so the self-maintenance of the Nation when it
came into existence necessarily led to the construction of new
Empires.136 jt v/as natural therefore that he should heartily
support the War in Ethiopia.
In this matter he was at one v/ith the general current of
opinion and no longer an unheeded Cassandra. He clearly recog-
nized v/hat seems to be an undoiibted fact, that is that the War
had united the Nation to a greater degree than at any previous
time since 1922. It had completed the Fascist conquest of Italy:
. . . the menaces and attempted tyranny have made an
unbreakable block of all Italians, freeing Fascism
from all the remnants of passive opposition and
national discord. Hence the resistance to the
economic blockade has assumed at times a religious
form and accent . . .137
In the light of this great moral advance he felt justified in
condemning as simple-minded the "Quakers and well-meaning members
of societies" who had scruples about Italy's aggression.
When the war was over, and the Emperor's crown had been

J
°2rjJhe ambiguities and dangers of this interpretation of
Actual Idealism have been briefly alluded to in Chapter IV
(pp. 147-156 above).
136B.1023 in B.1139, p. 120.
1
37]3.ii4.4 in B.1139, p. 383.
placed on Victor Emmanuel's head, Gentile wrote a retrospective
article about the war v/hich is, perhaps, the most shocking example
of the way in v/hich his historical judgement was v/arped by his
ov/n desires, in the whole corpus of his writings. -* According
to this article the victory v/as won against "one of the most
formidable European coalitions that history records."139 j_t had
so united Italy that anyone who raised complaints now about
"formal and non-existent democratic liberty" must stifle his own
feeling of pride first. Thus the founding of the Empire was
really the malting of the new Italy which Fascism had laboured
constantly, if not alv/ays quite coherently, to create. The
Fascists knew that their enemies v/ould attempt to enclose them in
a circle of steel eventually; therefore they had prepared for war
from the beginning, not for a war that they intended, be it
understood, but for a v/ar v/hich their enemies v/ould have willed
sooner or later.
The "juridical" attitude adopted by the League v/as merely
a cloak for hypocrisy. It v/as ridiculous to pretend that the
King of Italy and the Negus of Ethiopia were equal members of one
society. 140 i'iie enemies of Fascism (England and the Soviet
Union in particular) had seen their chance to embarrass the new
movement and taken it: their attempt to draw a distinction

138
B.1145.
1
39B.1145 in Civilta Fascista III (1936), p. 321.
-1-40Qentile ignores the fact that Ethiopia was originally
admitted to the League on Italy's insistence and despite the
protests of the British whom he regards as the arch-hypocrites
and villains of the piece.
 295

betv/een the 'people' towards whom they claimed to be friendly,

and the Government of v/hich they disapproved, v/as an insult which
the Italian people had rightly resented.-'-41
It is hard to see hov/ anyone who claimed to be an historian
could utter such unadulterated nonsense as this. We may admit,
I think, that the attitude of other imperial powers in endeav-
ouring to block Italy's path in Ethiopia v/as bound to appear
arrant hypocrisy to the Italians. But the fact was that times
had changed since the days v/hen European diplomats could carve up
the world as they chose: and in any case such arrangements had
alv/ays been made behind closed doors. The most prominent League
Powers v/ere desperate to retain Mussolini's friendship. Musso-
lini himself made this impossible by a policy of adolescent
brashness and swashbuckling bravado which turned public opinion
in the democratic countries decisively against him. We cannot
fairly expect a Fascist to say or even to see this. But Gentile's
attempt to build up the half-hearted opposition of the League into
"one of the strongest coalitions that history records", and his
insistence that their policy v/as motivated by hatred of Fascism,

141j3y a more than usually confusing reversion from the

'external' to the 'internal' point of view Gentile proceeds
finally to brand the Roman Catholic Church as the arch-enemy of
Fascism. There is no logical connection between this part of the
essay (pp. 327-329) and the earlier indictment of the League.
Nor is there any connection at all that I can discern, betv/een
the relations of Fascism v/ith the Vatican and the Ethiopian War.
The fact is that Gentile just could not resist the temptation to
attack "Catholic Fascism" on every conceivable occasion. He
reiterates his viev/ that Fascism v/as bound to come into conflict
v/ith Catholicism, since both are totalitarian conceptions. The
very Concordat which seemed to prove the contrary had in fact
demonstrated this, since later history had made manifest the fact
that it possessed quite different meanings for the tv/o parties
to it.
 296

when it simply represented the very least they could do to placate

public opinion in their ov/n countries, v/ould have disgraced a
gutter-press journalist in any democratic country. I can find no
shadow of excuse for this shameful effusion.

10. Epilogue.
Gentile's adhesion to Fascism gave rise to a great variety
of opinions regarding his character and his philosophy. Almost
all of these opinions v/ere erroneous in a greater or lesser
degree, since they rested on a mistaken view either of his philo-
sophy or of his Fascism—and sometimes of both. Nor is this
surprising for the truth is that u-entile understood politics
hardly at all. He did not see what Fascism v/as because he did
not want to see. Or rather, he twisted v/hat he sav/ until it
corresponded in some measure v/ith what he wanted to see, and
explained the result in terms of his speculative philosophy by
means of a whole series of equivocations and ambiguities.
Because of 'these ambiguities there were not wanting those
who followed Croce's lead and denounced his whole philosophy as
rotten. Perhaps the oddest product of this school is the little
'cautionary tale' in the Autobiography of R. G. Collingwood:
. . . Fascism was not capable of honesty. Essentially
an attempt to fight Socialism v/ith its ov/n weapons,
it v/as alv/ays inconsistent v/ith itself. There v/as once
a very able and distinguished philosopher v/ho was
converted to Fascism. As a philosopher that was the
end of him. No one could embrace a creed so funda-
mentally muddle-headed and remain capable of clear
thinking. . . .142

142R. (J. Collingwood, An Autobiography, Oxford University

Press, 1939, p. 158.
 297

One can forgive Croce's rancour-1-43 -^^^ no-j- this: for Collingwood
certainly read and profited from one of Gentile's greatest v/orks,
the Philosophy of Art v/hich v/as published in 1931.
Other writers, less strictly interested in his philosophy,
found his conversion from liberalism to Fascism quite incredible.
Gaudens Megaro summed it up thus:
Not to be overlooked is the type of liberal, represented
by Giovanni Gentile, v/ho performs the intellectual acro-
batic feat of declaring that liberalism and fascism are
two aspects of the same thing and hence compatible v/ith
each other.144
Even the temperate Br. Mueller (whose difficulty cannot be imputed
to lack of knowledge) v/as perplexed by the contradiction between
Gentile's liberal affirmation in 1907 that although a definite
philosophy should be taught in the schools it should not be a
State philosophy but a free expression of the teacher's own con-
science, and his acquiescence in the imposition of just such a
State philosophy twenty years later.145
To understand Gentile's Fascism is to understand this volte
face. The first essential is to understand his feelings about
the Great War. V/e have to remember that in 1907 he was one of a

143j]Ven in his case it is hard to forgive some of the

lengths to which the vendetta v/as carried. In particular, his
attempt to expunge the past, by removing or changing many of the
judgements on Gentile and his school v/hich he had published in
earlier years from the later editions of his books, was repre-
hensible. It would have been perfectly easy for him to be
content, as Gentile was, v/ith occasional caustic footnotes.
When a man publishes his opinions they cease to belong to him
alone. Croce's action has made the task of any would-be historian
of his opinions almost impossibly difficult.
44|y[U330iini j n the Making, p. 241.
145Mueller, op. cit., pp. 317-318.
 298

tiny minority who pleaded that a completely "lay" school was no

school at all; even then he felt that any faith, even an imposed
authoritarian one, v/as preferable to no faith at all. When Italy
entered the War he thought that she had found her way to faith in
herself; Caporetto seemed to shov/ that he was mistaken, that the
long centuries of cynicism and pessimism had weakened the heart
and spirit of the people—and he felt that the "lay" school v/as
ultimately responsible. But in her worst hour Italy found the
pov/er to resist, and the War ended at last with her first great
victory as a nation. Then came four years of anarchy in v/hich no
one ever reflected on the "City" for which Socrates had lived and
died. Gentile was not the only thoughtful and moderate person
who sav/ in the fascists the vindicators of that principle of
authority, law and order without v/hich no community can exist.
Only his feelings v/ere stronger because his hopes had been higher.
In 1922 he was still insisting that "every faith is sacred; but a
faith there must be." 4

But he v/as not thinking of a political faith: and no one

has suggested that he himself v/ould have done what later
Ministers did. He was ready, however, to justify v/hat they did.
The parallel he drew in defending the educational purge is
instructive; he recalled Be Sanctis' purge after the establishment
of the Kingdom in 1860.147 xn his view the Fascists had to make
a clean start, just as the nation had done then. It is true that
the Fascists went further than he thought v/as wise in their zeal

146]3.668 in B.1057, p. 17.

147cf. B.836 in B.937, pp. 62-63.
 299
*

for discipline; and he said so. But he remembered his Vico and
reflected that they v/ould grov/ wiser and more temperate in time.
The alternative was anarchy. Even Croce, v/e should remember, gave
the government a vote of confidence in the Matteotti crisis.
But where Croce, despite his earnest desire for social
order, drew the line at outright dictatorship, Gentile went on.
He did this because, when he joined the Party in 19 23, his action
expressed something more than an agreement with party policy. It
was an act of allegiance to a "Regime": something which was
"above and beyond the Party "14<J as Socrates' "City" was above and
beyond his accusers. His loyalty to the "Regime" continued—
perhaps indeed it was even stronger—in his years of eclipse. The
Party made mistakes; but the Regime was an ideal: and only
through absolute loyalty to that ideal could the mistakes be
corrected.
There is one aspect of Gentile's loyalty to the Fascist
regime that we have not hitherto considered. His loyalty v/as not
to a pure ideal entity such as the Nation. It v/as a personal
loyalty to Mussolini. He v/as a true Fascist in that he shared the
faith of many less cultured and less critical minds that "Musso-
lini is always right"—Mussolini ha sempre ragione. He did not,
perhaps, take the saying quite as literally as a bigoted Fascist
militiaman;149 "but he certainly believed that Mussolini possessed
the Mazzinian "privilege of genius ".150 ].je w a a -^}ie "great

±48 C f # fo_^ i n s t a n c e j _B.IO27 in B.1104.

4Jtij have never believed in the infallibility of anybody"
he says somewhere in one of his Fascist apologias.
1
2°cf. B.836 in B.937, p. 47; B.9 24 in B.937, p. 87.
1
 300

captain"—il Condottlere possente x ? 1 —of whom Machiavelli had

dreamed. In Hegelian terms, Gentile was certain that the Welt-
geist possessed him and spoke through him. In his own preferred
terminology, Mussolini v/as simply 1'Uomo, "the Man"—the one man
in fact to whom all of Gentile's Fascist philosophy really applied
when stripped of all its equivocations.
He wrote one article specifically about the personality of
Mussolini: Finer cites the following passage from i t — a passage
which eloquently sums up all the many references to Mussolini in
hi s v/ri t ing s:
. . . the major contribution of the personality of
Mussolini to the ideas v/hich he represents, is the
great moral force which emanates from him, his prestige,
his fascination v/hich he exercises on individuals v/ho
meet him, and the masses to whom lie speaks in meetings
of many thousands of persons, v/ho had never before been
seen crowding together excitedly to listen to an orator.
Moral force, v/hich springs from the absolute faith which
he, before all, has in his ov/n ideas and the provi-
dential mission which he is destined to fulfil for his
country, and the great humanity of his soul, closed to
every individual interest and only open to the vast
generous sentiment of those ideal goods which transcend
the individual and concern the Fatherland in its honour,
its glory, its security and prosperity, and, therefore,
in its pov/er and its value in the history of the world.
A vast feeling, which is echoed in his forthright nude
and powerful eloquence, which reaches the minds of the
listeners as the immediate expression of that which they
have in the deepest depth always felt without thinking
about, v/ithout forming a clear concept, and v/ithout
therefore knowing hov/ to say it to themselves clearly.152

As we shall see, it was the fact that the political ideal of his
twenty years as a Fascist, was so inextricably linked v/ith his
personal belief in Mussolini, that caused him to become involved

^ I c f . B.9 24 in B.937, p. 91.

•*-*>zlii±ner1 op_. cit. , p. 301-302. The original, which I have
not seen, is B.1117.
in the last mad experiment of the Fascist Social Republic, and so
led him to his death.
Because of this loyalty to an ideal personified Gentile
went on to the end, trying within the framework of the Fascist
State, to correct and moderate the errors and excesses of various
government authorities. It cannot be said that he v/as any more
popular among the Fascists than among the anti—Fascists: but it
must be admitted that he was sincere, and that, if prejudiced, he
v/as at least personally disinterested. If ever there v/as s^lch
a thing, he v/as a "good" Fascist: indeed his conscious raoral
uprightness v/as his worst fault in the eyes of both sides. The
arrogance of innocence is a most infuriating thing in politics,
especiallj/ v/hen the innocence is not, or v/hen one suspects that
it is not, completely disingenuous.
The fairest verdict on Gentile's political career seems
therefore to be that of Dr. Minio-Paluello:
Gentile . . . and some of his followers, such as
Codignola, v/ho entered the Party, thought that they
v/ere giving Fascism an intelligent soul, which would
lead the emotions along a good path. This marriage
betv/een philosophy and pov/er was not very successful
in the long run.l>3
He did have some success in preserving the standards of culture
against the worst excesses of dictatorial barbarism. He might

J
-2 ^Minio-Paluello, op_. cit. , p. 67- Cf. Finer (writing in
1935), p_p_. cit. , p. 166: ". . . whereas Gentile taught an
idealism v/hich soars above the Nation and includes individual
self-development, Rocco taught Nationalism v/hich makes the Nation
paramount over the individual and in international relations.
There is charity in Gentile's conception and misanthropy in
Rocco's. The latter has triumphed."
Or again on p. 470: "Not the open free will idealism of
Gentile has triumphed—he was squeezed dry and the peel thrown
away—but the closed mind of the Fascist doctrine."
 <« 302

have had more, had he understood the art of compromise, had he

been more pliant, more conversant v/ith the everyday weakness of
ordinary human beings—"empirical individuals". But then had he
been less rigid, less certain of his ov/n logic, he might never
have become a Fascist at all.

NOTE
The Breach betv/een Gentile and Croce.
After the maturing of Actual Idealism Croce and Gentile
gradually drifted apart. It was not that either side wished it;
each recognized the value of the concordia discors that existed
between them. Gentile dedicated the second edition of his Theory
of Mind as Pure Act (1918) in words which make this abundan^bTy
clear on~hTis side; and as late as April 1921 Croce wrote a most
friendly and perceptive iiitrodtictio.il to the English translation
of the Reform of Education (B.659, pp. vii-xi, quoted above,
Chapter I, p. 38"). Sprigge is therefore quite v/rong in speaking
of the open letters exchanged in La Voce in 1912-1913 (see above
Chapter II, p. 40) as a "quarrel, on which Croce maintains silence
in his autobiographical sketch" (Benedetto Croce, p. 16). There
v/as no quarrel; but Croce's attitude towards Actual Idealism
continued to be mainly negative and when it began to attract
disciples he v/as unwilling to accord to them the sympathetic con-
sideration that he accorded to their master.
Hence Gentile v/as led to found a new Review—the Giornale
critico della filosofia italiana—as an oiitlet for the activity
of his "school". He appears to have been rather hurt by Croce's
virulently hostile criticism of some of his pupils' books, and
he firmly declined to admit the distinction that Croce attempted
to set up betv/een master and disciples. But he continued to
contribute to La Critica; and on the other hand, the very fact
that Croce did attempt to distinguish between Gentile and his
followers is evidence for the continued existence of the friend-
ship .
The tv/o philosophers were associated in the founding of the
review Nuova politica liberale (cf. Giornale critico, Volume III,
1922, p. 419). This v/as after Gentile had become Minister of
Public Instruction in Mussolini's first cabinet. But by the time
that the first issue of that review appeared in January 1923
Croce seems to have withdrawn. It is very probable that
Gentile's decision to join the Fascist Party and his claim that
Fascism represented the true liberalism v/as one of the most
important catalysts in resolving Croce's hesitation about the
new movement. After January 1923 Gentile's contributions to
ljEl Crj-tica ceased abruptly—an incomplete article being left
 303

hanging (B.768). (We should not attach too much importance to

this, however, in view of Gentile's heavy ministerial duties at
this time: virtually nothing from his pen—except a chapter from
the second volume of the Logic v/hich v/as probably written before
October 1922—appeared even in the biomale critico in this year;
and the fact that the article in La Critica was never reprinted
suggests that perhaps it v/as never completed).
In 1924 Croce published his essay on the "Elements of
Politics" in La Critica, in which he stigmatized Gentile's theory
of the EthicaT~State as a governmental theory of morality; and
Gentile replied in a brief note in the Giornale critico (B.812).
The tone of this exchange was hostile but impersonal. (See below,
Chapter VII, Section 1). The dedication of the Theory of Mind as
Pure Act to Croce v/as still retained in the fifth edition pub-
lished in this year; and in a very critical review of Gentile's
Logic Croce emphasized that he and Gentile were still friends and
collaborators despite their disagreements. It v/as Croce's
declaration in favour of the Liberal Party in 1925 after an adult
life of nearly forty years of scholarly aloofness from politics
that turned the theoretical polemic betv/een them into a personal
quarrel. Gentile replied to Croce's praises of liberalism as the
party of culture (Giornale d'Italia, March 18, 1925) in an article
published in L'Epoca on March 21, 1925 (B.830 in B.818, pp. Ib3-
159). His tone v/as one of great respect and even affection for
Croce: but he suggested that the v/hole of Croce's past and the
Risorgimento tradition to v/hich he belonged stood against his
expression of sympathy v/ith democratic liberalism. " . . . the
whole of Croce's philosophical ediication and the constant and most
profound inspiration of his thought makes him a genuine Fascist
v/ithout a black shirt. I am sincerely sorry to say something that
at this moment may be displeasing to him, but all of us who love
Croce and feel that he is alive beside us and within us, cannot
resign ourselves to abandon him to the pa,st, where because of a
certain taste for nostalgic yearning, scholarly yet instinct v/ith
inward emotion and inward aestheticism, he sometimes would like to
take refuge from the tiresome events and persons tho.t besiege us
in the present." (ibid., p. 154).

Croce was in fact so displeased with this suggestion that he

never forgot it, or forgave Gentile for making it: and in his
brief reply (Giornale d'Italia, March 23, 1925) he even attacked
Gentile's competence as a scholar. Gentile pointed out that the
whole v/orld knew that for twenty-five vears Croce had been of a
different opinion on that subject (B.831 in B.818, pp. 159-161).
A few days after this exchange in the nev/spapers Gentile
was commissioned by the Congress of Fascist Intellectuals at
Bologna to write o, Manifesto expressing their faith in the new
Regime. In reply Croce published a Protest against the intro-
duction of party politics into the v/orld of culture which was
signed by very many prominent Italian men of letters. The
original Manifesto v/as soon forgotten; but the Protest v/as long
remembered by the authorities: it become known as the Manifesto
and 'signatory of the manifesto' was a badge of shame in official
 304

circles. Thus the personal quarrel between Croce and Gentile

assumed a national significance, and the breach became absolutely
irrevocable.
Gentile's tone throughout the polemic of the next eighteen
years remained calmer than Croce's. He once stigmatized the
personal tone of Croce's vendetta against himself as "obscene"
when viewed in relation to the dedications of the latter's Poetry
of Bante and Bibliography of Vico (see B.982—1929). Benedetto
Gentile tells us that in private life he alv/ays abstained from
uttering a word against Croce (Vita e_ pensiero. Volume IV, p. 20).
But there v/as a note of self-righteousness about his side of the
polemic which v/as in its way quite as insulting as Croce's
unreasoning outbursts of emotion, and v/hich may well have been
even more irritating.
 305

CHAPTER VII

POLITICS M B ECONOMICS IN THE ETHICAL STATE

!• Croce and the "Ethical State".

Almost all of Gentile's important v/ork after 1923—with the
exception of the Filosofia dell'artel— w a s influenced by his
Fascist sympathies. It is by no means easy to decide where to
draw the line betv/een philosophy proper and political polemic in
this period. This is not in any way surprising since Gentile
himself insisted continually that philosophy and life, theory and
practice could not be separated—indeed it is his account of
their indissoluble union that constitutes the essential core of
his philosophy. His whole view of reality is fundamentally
ethical, that is, political; and though a distinction can be
dravm between his political writings and his v/ritings on political
theory, any attempt to separate them must necessarily have a
merely pragmatic character. Even the writings dealt with in the
last chapter, in v/hich the influence of non-philosophical pre-
judices is most clearly evident, contain many pages of valuable
reflection and speculation, often of a kind that v/ould not be
considered political in any We11anschauung less "totalitarian"
than that of Actual Idealism. While on the other hand the contro-
versy with Croce concerning the nature of the State, which

^A political occasion has even been suggested for the

Filosofia dell'arte. Br. Mueller writes: "j'ai eu l'impression
qu' elle a e^te^r'edigee plutot pour se substituer, dans l'enseigne-
ment secondaire en Italie, au Breviaire d'esthe id que de Croce, que
pour satisfaire a une veritable exigence iht'crieure. " (op. cit. ,
p. 310, fn.). But this seems to me a case in which his intuition
is seriously at fault.
 306'

deserves to be treated on its merits as a philosophical discussion,

clearly has its roots largely in the political disagreement-
be twe en the two men.
Even before the advent of Fascism, hov/ever, it v/as apparent
that the two philosophers did not agree perfectly in their
theories of politics. In writing his Ethical Fragments—which
appeared in La Critica in the years following Italy's entry into
the War—Croce offered some pertinent and positive criticism of
his friend's theory, and showed why he could not accept it
although he recognized elements of truth in it.
Politics, Croce argued, is a technical business: it is the
special art of directing the economic selfish interests of indi-
viduals into orderly channels, in such a v/ay that their conflict
shall not degenerate into a v/ar of all against all. The poli-
tician is a kind of artist, detached from the passions of men,
which are simply the material on which he works.2 it is not he,
but the ordinary man, the good citizen, who recoils from the evil
and corruption in the v/orld. The good citizen recoils especially
before the spectacle of corruption in public life, for the State,
the rule of law, represents for him his one defence against uni-
versal barbarism—"the State, in the aspect here considered, is
an ethical institution, the greatest of all ethical institutions,
and virtually the sum of them all."-^ But his impatient demand
for "honesty" in public life demonstrates an inability to grasp

^Etica _e politica, Bari, Laterza, 1945, p. 160 (English

translation by Arthur Livingston v/ith the title The Conduct of
Life, New York, Harcourt Brace, n.d., p. 240).
J
loc. cit.
 307~|

the real nature of politics. V/e do not worry about whether a

surgeon is "honest" or not. "Political honesty is nothing but
political capacity":4 capability carries with it its own moral
guarantee—"a man endov/ed with genius or real capacity may let
himself be corrupted in everything else but not in politics, for
politics is his passion, his love, his glory, the substance and
purpose (fine sostanziale"^ of his life. "2
The politician, being unable to change the passions which
are his material, except by a slow and laborious transformation,
is often obliged to cheat and deceive them. He himself feels that
this is 'v/rong' but, at the same time, he feels forced to do i t —
which indicates that ultimately it is not 'wrong' at all. He is
the architect of the economic life, the v/orld in which everyone
recognizes that 'business is business' and no one feels guilty
about it. But the fate of Machiavelli warns us that a candid
acknowledgement on the part of the politician that his business
is not run according to the strictest canons of abstract morality
v/ould be an irretrievable mistake. He must keep it a secret even
from himself if possible.
Furthermore, in the performance of his duty, he is not bound
by the ideals v/hich govern personal life. States have no 'honour',
no moral ideal, they cannot acknowledge error or sin—"the State
does not revolve in the circle of ethics."6
How are we to reconcile this conclusion, drawn from the

TBtica _e politica, p. 166; cf. Conduct of Life, p. 251.

5ibid., p. 167; cf. Conduct of Life, p. 253.
ibid., p. 177; cf. Conduct of Life, p. 264.
 308

politician's point of view, v/ith the earlier remark that, from the
point of view of the good citizen, the State is "the greatest of
all ethical institutions"? We have to consider what it is that
each of these assertions is meant to deny. Machiavelli and the
sound political theorists deny that the State is "subject to the
norms of Christian piety." Whereas those who declare that the
State is an ethical value mean to assert its autonomy, its inde-
pendence of the moral authority of the Church. They claim that
the State itself is the true Church. In the tv/o assertions the
"State" is taken in two different senses; "in a first moment as
pure potency, pure utility; and thence it rises to morality—not
repudiating its former character but negating it, that is,
preserving it by transcending it."T
The real State, Croce concludes, is not identical either
with "pov/er" or v/ith "morality". These are only ideal tendencies
within it. Indeed the 'real' State is simply the practical
activity of man: and these two aspects of the State are the
eternal forms of that practical activity.
It was not stirprising that when Gentile began his polemical
activities on behalf of the Fascist Regime, Croce put this
critical analysis to use against him. In 1925 he published a
little volume entitled The Elements of Politics in v/hich the
doctrine of the Ethical State, as held by Gentile, v/as denounced
as a "governmental theory of morality". Poii'cical action, Croce
argued, is properly action undertaken from the politician's point
of view—economic, utilitarian action. In fact it is

Etica e politica, p. 182; cf. Conduct of Life, p. 274.

 309

speculatively impossible to distinguish betv/een specifically poli-

tical action and the everyday economic activity v/hich makes up
the warp and woof of life. The State is a merely abstract concept
v/ith a purely empirical usefulness: in its most concrete sense
it means simply the whole complex of actions performed by members
of the government—from v/hich it cannot properly be separated.
This theory of the State as simple utility is therefore,
despite appearances, in essential agreement with the doctrine
that the State is founded on force. "The State . . . is not a
o

fact, but a spiritual category" u —the category of utility, v/hich

is equivalent to pure spiritual force, i.e. to every kind of
human pov/er. Since everyone possesses some power all States rest
on 'consent' in so far as its citizens are enabled to exercise
it and on 'force' in so far as that exercise is controlled from
v/ithout. "The practical politician ends by agreeing v/ith Joseph
de Maistre that it is alv/ays necessary to preach the benefits of
authority to the peox^le and those of liberty to the princes. "9
For the politician everything, even religion and morality,
is simply an economic instrument or obstacle. Great ideals like
the "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" of 1789 are employed as
powerful weapons for securing political ends. But in the process
of realizing these ends politics itself becomes moral. Ethics is
built on a £>olitical foundation: the priority and hence the

"Btica e politica, p. 220; cf. the English translation by

Salvatore J. Castiglione with the title Politics and Morals,
London, Allen and unwin, 1946, p. 14.
9jbid., p. 222; cf. Politics and Morals, p. 16.
 310

amorality of Politics is temporal and definite.1° But Politics

is not a self-sufficient sphere of activity. All political
activity is governed by the moral conscience and directed to
ethical ends: and thus the simple utilitarian State is trans-
formed;
. . . it is no longer a simple utilitarian relation,
a synthesis of force and mutual consent, of authority
and liberty, but an incarnation of the human ethos
and therefore an ethical State or State of culture . . .
So it is, too, v/ith the word "consent", which now
becomes ethical approval and hence devotion to "force",
but to the force v/hich is the force of good, so. that
consent is not more or less forced, but becomes full
and complete . . .
From this point of view, that exaltation of the
State v/hich . . . still re-echoes in many schools
to-day, may seem unexceptionable though redundant.H
But as a conception of the v/hole moral life the State is
inadequate. The concrete, real State is identical v/ith the
government—which wisely fears the critical power of thought. A
thinker who devotes himself to the service of the State can never
be more than second rate:
When "morality" is conceived as the "ethical State"
and the latter is identified with the political State,
or simply with the "State", v/e arrive at the concept
(from which the theorists of that school do not recoil),
that concrete morality lies wholly in those who rule,
in the act of their governing; and their adversaries
must be considered the adversaries of morality in action,
deserving not only to be punished, with or without the
sanction of the lav/ . . . but also deserving the highest
moral condemnation. This is, so to speak, a "govern-
mental" concept of morality, the original formulation
of v/hich can even be justified in a sense . . .12
. . . But not, v/e may infer, any of the later formulations. The

-^Etica e politica, p. 228; cf. politics and Morals, p. 22.

-^ibid., pp. 230-231; cf. Politics and Morals, pp. 23-24.
12
ibid., p. 232; cf. politics and Morals, p. 26.
 311

total moral life really includes

both the men who govern and their adversaries, the
conservatives and the revolutionaries, and the latter
perhaps more than the former, because they open the
ways of the future better than the others and bring
about the advancement of human society.13
Gentile replied to this indictment in a brief but brilliant
critical notice,14 arguing that Croce had simply misunderstood
the theory of the Ethical State and that, moreover, his own
position was fraught with difficulties. In Gentile's opinion,
the proposed definition of the "political" State was an atomic,
materialist conception v/hich Croce himself v/as unable to main-
tain. How, for instance, could he admit that the State was a
"spiritual category" while he insisted in defining it in an
empirical way? Or again, since he held that sovereignty subsisted
in neither party to the sovereign-subject relation, but rather in
the relationship itself, and that force and consent v/ere correla-
tive terras, the failure of either of which involved the destruc-
tion and death of the State, how could he say that the State does
not transcend the mere individual?
Certainly the State is a 'force', Gentile goes on, and
certainly it is individual. But it is a spiritual, moral force
and its individuality is not the immediate individuality of the
empirical individual: it is the immanent universality of the
rational v/ill.
Another of Croce's criticisms was th-rb o.ll the proponents
of the Ethical State ultimately have to recognize that it is not

-JEtica e_ politica, p. 232; cf. Poli tics and l\orals, p. 26.

1
^B.812.
 31

the State, but the total process of World History in v/hich indi-
vidual States are particular elements, that is ethical: in this
he found a tacit admission that the State is not properly an
ethical universal.12 Gentile answers this by saying that the
State, apart from its actual history, is an abstraction: the
Ethical State is the State as determined within the complex of
World History. Therefore no diminution of the State's ethical
character is involved in the final appeal to World History,16
In this respect, as Gentile points out, Croce is obliged to
condemn his ov/n concept of the State as abstract. Croce does in
fact say that "History" pure and simple is "ethico-political".
Of course, he goes on to say that this ethico-political history
includes
not only the State, the government of the State and
the expansion of the State, but also that which is out-
side of the State, whether it co-operates with it or
tries to modify it, overthrow it and replace it: the
formation of moral institutions, in the broadest sense
of the v/ord, including religious institutions and
revolutionary sects, and the sentiments, customs,
fancies, and myths that are practical in tendency and
content. If, however, one wishes to consider the
complex of this movement as the very life of the State,
in its highest sense, v/e shall not object to the v/ord,
so long as it is interpreted thus . . .17
But this is what the supporters of the Staa'tsgeschichte that he
condemns meant.
Croce's fundamental argument that the individual is the

•L2Etica e_ politica, pp. 261-262; cf. Politics and Morals,

pp. 55-56.
-1- But Gentile himself uses this same argument against
Hegel—cf. below, pp. 327-328.
"1 7
'Etica e_ politica, p. 279; cf. Politics and Morals, p. 73.
Gentile cites the passage in B.812.
 313

principle of progress, through his pov/er to oppose his will to

that of the Government, receives short shrift:
This supremacy £superamento^ also, seems to us to be
a very easy victory over an imaginary foe: inasmuch
as the State does not leave outside of itself the
opposers of the government, but generates revolution
v/ithin its OVAI breast, t.he revolution which is not its
annihilation, but rather its realization.18
The interesting thing about this argument is that both sides
appear to me to be right. The 'economic' theory of the State
advanced by Croce is surely as unacceptable as that of Machiavelli
without being quite as consistent. The politician is not a
technical expert chosen for his ability to deceive us for our own
good. How could v/e choose him for such an ability? Politics,
as opposed to diplomacy, is not a technical matter at all, but
a moral one. It is not concerned v/ith means but with ends.
Unless the politician tells LIS honestly just v/hat he considers
the 'National interest1 to be, we cannot decide whether he is a
fit person to be looking after it. The 'National interest' is
not something that defines itself, in the v/ay in which 'pros-
perity1 in the economic world reduces to 'long term monetary
advantage'. Croce's theory of politics in the Ethical Fragments
Is essentially Platonic. The politicians may legitimately
deceive everyone except the uuardians—the philosophers who are
capable of thinking "dialectically". It is a measure of the
success of Giolitti1s regime in Italy that his spirit penetrated
so deeply into the thought of a mind as acutely critical and as
deeply moral as Croce'o; but a careful study of Croce's theory

B.812.
v/ill show why that regime v/as bound to break down.
The salvation of Croce's political thought lies in the
barrenness of his 'economic' theory of the State. The fruitful
concept in his meditations on the subject is that of 'ethico-
political history'; a history which is the creation of a moral
individual v/ho is not deceived by the wiles of professional
partisans. Vico and Machiavelli may have had important insights
into the role of force and deceit in politics; but the importance
of these insights lies precisely in the fact that they make it
possible to overcome this force and deceit, by consciously
willing in accordance with the "plan of Providence" or the
"effectual realities of the situation".
This is Gentile's ideal. The danger is that the ideal may
degenerate into a servility to the "effectual realities" which
is thoroughly immoral and therefore much v/orse than the amoralism
of Croce. All too often in Gentile's Fascist polemics the word
'State' obviously means 'Fascist Government'. It can have moral
value, therefore, only for the convinced Fascist: but it is
obvious that Gentile means to claim for it authority over Fascist
and non-Fascist alike. One can hardly escape the feeling that a.
view of the State which makes such equivocation possible is ipso
facto inadequate as a moral ideal. An examination of history is
not reassuring: all of the supporters of the ethical character
of tiie State from Socrates onwards have been extreme conser-
vatives. Far from being merely possible, it seems that the
tendency to equate 'State' v/ith 'Government' is natural, and
indeed almost necessary--as Croce claims—in order to give defin-
ition and concreteness to the otherwise empty theory. To this
 315

point we shall return.

2. Economics and Ethics.

Gentile v/as not content with a mere refutation of Croce "s
arguments. A few years later he carried the war into the enemy's
country in an article on "Economics and Bthic3" which, although,
in accordance v/ith an unwritten law of the Fascist regime, it
did not mention Croce, was clearly directed at him.19
Economics, he begins, is an abstract science. Once this is
admitted many jpnilosophical or semi-philosophical polemics
against it fall to the ground. It is true, however, that
economics stands in continual need of philosophical criticism;
and Gentile, v/hile admitting that he lacks the technical compe-
tence to provide a systematic study of the problem, offers some
general comments from his ov/n philosophical point of view.
First of all, economics is not a science of external
objects but of internal desires. Its ultimate concern is the
human will. The 'things' to v/hich the v/ill is directed are
called 'useful' in virtue of the fact that it is directed to
them.
The primary useful thing is the earth; but in so far
as it is useful, it is precisely the earth that man
occupies, and possesses, and makes his ov/n, linking
it ever more bindingly and rigorously to his own life,
and incorporating his own labour in it to an ever
greater degree.^0
When this inwardness of economics was first recognized it seemed
that economics had been given a philosophical foundation:

19
B.1107 in B.1139, pp. 271-293.
20
ibid., p. 273.
 316

. . . and that with the discovery of a new category

of the spirit, economic pov/er [ 1' economicita] , the
age-old antinomies of utilitarian morality "and pure
morality might be resolved in a twinkling.
But the discovery was very soon revealed as
dangerous . . . 21
For the new spiritual category did not assist the understanding
of the empirical science—v/hich continued obstinately empirical—
while from the philosophical point of view "it presented itself
from the beginning as something fleeting, being immediately
transformed into morality." The attempt to define 'economic
will' as 'volition of the individual' failed because concretely
the Will v/ills only itself, the universal, the good or bad action.
In itself and for itself, economic action exhibits the firmness,
constancy and coherence which are essential to morality. It is
real and serious.22 jt can only posthumously be adjudged 'parti-
cular' through the application of a criterion external to the
original act.
Economic will has its ov/n logic and follows its own
ideal: it is not simple brute instinct but pov/er informed and
guided by intelligence. The imperative of economic action is,
therefore, universal not hypothetical; it is not directed to
means but to ends. And its ends are only abstractly 'accidental'.
Concretely the end presents itself alv/ays as necessary. This
necessity is the mark of an immanent universal, a moral value.
Concrete volition is never simply egoistic. Even its own selfish
interest, is affirmed by tiie Ego, if i t is affirmed, as something

^B.1107 in B.1139, p. 274.

22"Ear, far rather Cesare Borgia than Pier Soderini",
ibid., p. 275.
 317

of universal import. The affirmation may be 'mistaken'; but then

it is 'mistaken1 for and in relation to a new affirmation more
adequate to the universal law.
This recognition puts us in a position to decide certain
vexed questions in political economy. First, it is obvious that
the conventional distinction between public and private morality
which has been employed in discussions of Machiavelli is baseless.
It will not do to say that Machiavelli is a master of the theory
of economic will, and that v/e are wrong to expect morality of
him. If the State which is served by a Machiavellian prince has
a moral value then so has his political theory and practice.
In making the State the Prince acts as representative and inter-
preter of the community; the State's conscience is his conscience;
a conscience which contains his private life and activity and is
inseparable from it. The same holds for every adult citizen
conscious of his civic responsibility. It is in the light of his
consciousness of the State that he governs his conduct as a
private individual. Political morality is not lower but higher,
more concrete.
What then of the Machiavellian doctrine that the end
justifies the means? The truth is, says Gentile, that end and
means are not concretely distinguishable. An immoral act can
only tend to create an immoral State, a State v/ithout roots in
the hearts of its citizens. This does not mean that he agrees
with the abstract moralists against Machiavelli. iror in his view,
the actions of the Prince are not to be measured against an ideal
theory; their morality or immorality is demonstrated by the
events in a tiae of crisis, and especially in war. War exists
 318

v/hen some element in the v/orld presents itself to the spirit as

an obstacle. V/ithin the State it is a sign of weakness, imper-
fection, immorality; but between States it is moral—though with
a morality very different from that of peaceful civic existence.
To kill a man in battle is not murder: nor for that matter is
the judicial execution of a citizen who "being estranged from the
conscience of the nation, turns against the State, which is the
living actuality of this conscience, like a stranger."23
Morality is indivisible and omnipresent in living activity:
the distinction of good, and evil, v/hich must certainly be made
if anything is to be moral at all, is internal to the moral
action. The moral action is always the one that has to be done
now. Morality has no meaning in relation to the past as past.
If actions v/ere really particular things strung out in series,
the economic question, 'What use is it?' would be the only one
v/e should need to ask. But behind the action lies tiie human
personality that spiritualises it and gives it value; and humanity
and the spirit are things that have no place on the utilitarian
scale.
This is the clue to the correct distinction of economics and

2
^B.1107 in B.1139, p. 284. In this passage Gentile betrays
his ovm cardinal principle that real punishment is internal to the
mind of the delinquent. He inherited this doctrine from Spaventa,
v/ho clearly understood and stated its implications (see above,
Chapter III, p. 65): but there is no question that his own mature
philosophy commits hi™ to a rejection of capital punishment in
any form. Cf. the following passage from "The Philosophy of the
War": "It is quite true then that the individual as such does not
count; but the individual counts, he counts for everything, inas-
much as he is the reality of the universal; and when the individ-
ual is destroyed, nothing remains. Hence the absolute value of
personality, infinite in. value even v/ithin the limits of its
empirical particularity. " (B".~306 in B. 496, p. 21; my italics).
 319

ethics. "Economic goods are not realizations but instruments of

the human spirit. What is human is not useful; the useful is
that which is a tool for man."24 Utility is a concept applicable
to things; it is not properly a category applicable to actions at
all, though v/e may abstractly distinguish 'instrumental' or
'useful' phases in a. complete (i.e. moral) act. Food, shelter,
the land, these are properly speaking the 'useful'. A slave
ceases to be useful when his master loves him, and does not merely
'set a value1 on him. V/hatever is regarded as external to the
spirit can have only an economic value or disvalue. Thus in the
end Gentile reverses the Crocian revolution and makes utility an
external concept rooted in the material world.
This conclusion suffices to explain the empirical and
mathematical character of economics. Economic goods are essen-
tially material; they form an indefinite multiplicity of things
comparable with one another. In short everything has its price.
The things of the spirit on the other hand are always unique and
incommensurable. "Niente di spirituale si scambia"—there is no
commerce in the things of the spirit.25

2
4B.U07 in B.1139, p. 287.
25ibid., p. 289. At this point Gentile goes on: "Well
then, if all this is true, it is no wonder that pure economics is
libertarian, and postulates a liberal politics, and prostrates
society in an atomic individualism which dissipates every moral
energy." Here, as in his concluding paragraph concerning corpor-
ative economics, he descends to frankly political polemic of
the kind dealt with in the last chapter. (Fascist corporative
economics, as v/e might expect, is based on the recognition of the
instrumental subordinate character of economics, as against the
economic materialism of the anti-Fascists, 'both liberals and
Marxists, who regard econoraic lav/s as inviolable dispensations of
nature) .
 320

The motto of the economic world is mors tua, vita mea, while
in the v/orld of the spirit the giver still possesses v/hat he
gives—"il donatore ha quel che da." Economic activity divides
men, the spirit unites them.
If man were really an economic animal he v/ould be condemned
to a sterile pursuit of egoism. But as a creature capable of
conscious thought he rises necessarily to a higher, universal,
standpoint. The economic viewpoint is one that all must pass
through, since all alike must recognize and build on the natural,
material world. But the spirit returns from its self-alienation
to a fuller knowledge of itself. In conquering nature man con-
quers himself; and even in "the most primitive act of consciousness
this conquest of nature is achieved—it is internalized, given
spiritual value in the form of 'feeling'.26 por a man to remain
at the economic level would be to renounce life: sit diva dum
non sit viva. Economic science, therefore, has an important
instrumental value but no normative powers; and economic life
should properly be controlled and regulated from a higher, poli-
tical, point of view.
Thus although Gentile's whole argument is directed against
Croce's theory of economics, his ultimate conclusion is very
close to that of Croce, v/ho early dissociated 'liberalism' as an
economic programme, from liberalism as a political ideal—a
method of life which might well, under given circumstances

For a criticism of this argument cf. our remarks on pain

and evil in Chapter II and Chapter IV (especially pp. 51-53
and 142-146). All that it can legitimately mean is that the real
problem is not the (morally indifferent) conquest of nature but
the essentially moral conquest of self.
 321

involve the abandonment of laissez-faire economics. Gentile's

criticisms are aimed only at speculative weaknesses in Croce's
justification of this conclusion.

3* Politics and Law.

The theoretical relationship between Economics and Ethics
is reflected in Gentile's social theory by the practical relation-
ship between Law and Politics. We saw in Chapter IV that he
considered Lav/ as the abstract content of morality. He does not
admit the existence of a purely juridical reality: Law is simply
the objective moment of volition, the moment in which the v/ill is
alienated from itself and does not recognize itself. It is
"nature in the realm of the Spirit". Considered in itself a
legal document is a dead thing: "it may be at the most a formula
or definition of a purely theoretical character with no practical
value."27
There was a time v/hen Gentile distinguished a realm of
abstract concepts which he allowed to possess universal value of
a sort. 28 But v/ith the development of his mature system of
absolute immanence, this abstract universality became an
absurdity. Hence he was bound to condemn Croce's theory of law
as something v/hich can subsist in ideal abstraction:
It is a grave error, then, that is committed, when
a sort of subsistence is attributed to abstract laws in
their imaginary universality, in accordance with the
absurd logical theory of the pseudo-concepts. It is
not true that a lav/ is conceivable, possessed of its

27
B.989 in B.1157, p. 122.
28
Cf. above, Chapter III, pp. 78-79, 81.
 322

value as law, apart from all the particular cases, in

which it is posited and meant to have value as law. It
can have value as law on one condition: that it be the
soul of all the particular cases in which it becomes
actual in history . . .29
Law, like economics, is inconceivable except within the wider
synthetic unity of life and action. The dialectic of this wider
synthesis is politics.
In political activity the moment of static alienation proper
to law, is overcome. It sometimes happens that the law that is
thus realized in action is not that which is "universally
recognized".3° In this event we have what is called crime; and
it is necessary that the criminal's error should be demonstrated.
The universality of the acting subject is at odds with the
universal subject presupposed by the lav/; out of this divergence
arises the possibility of development in the law. The acting
subject may obey a higher law than that which is written (as in
the case of Antigone): in such action the moral ideal is itself
established as law in the most concrete form. What is here
involved is not ethical criticism of an existing law but the
actual affirmation of a nev/ one. The pov/er of this new lav/ is
dependent on the strength of conviction v/ith which it is affirmed:
but also on v/hat Gentile calls its "pov/er of universality"
(potenza di universalita), by v/hich I take it that he means the

29
B.989 in B.1157, pp. 122-123.
30jbid., p. 126. This is a slightly loose and empirical
v/ay of talking about crime. Strictly speaking the lav/ that is
realized never lacks universality—and "universal recognition"
has a ring of that "imaginary universality" of empirical concepts.
For the criminal his law remains the law. Only when his past
action appears to him inconsistent with this law does the official
law have a moral value.
 323

degree to v/hich it is approved by the general conscience of the

society faced with what would otherwise be simply a criminal
action.
The law as promulgated is meant to express the abstract
essence of this general conscience. "Abstract right Cdiritto"}
is the garment that is made for everyone and does not fit anyone.
Right that is not right."81 Politics, on the other hand, is a
spiritual (moral) reality and cannot be conceived abstractly:
it is the real active conscience of the community. Thus it
coincides with the State. The distinction betv/een political
activity and the State is purely verbal, like the distinction
between 'v/ill' as a substantive and 'willing' as an activity; in
actual fact the whole substance of the State is exhausted in its
political activity.
This activity is not the sum of the activities of all the
citizens, but rather the universal spirit that informs the
whole mass of activities. All v/ill is essentially universal—
but its universality is realized in a process of gradual develop-
ment. None of an individual's actions are really private; that
is v/hat is meant by saying that man is a political animal. It is
true that some men are better political animals than others; but
the will of every individual has an essential value in the v/ill
of the State.
Nor does man as a political animal perform a funda-
mentally different function whether leader or follower.
The v/ill of the inferior depends on that of the superior
no' more than the latter depends on the former: in the

31
B.989 in B.1157, p. 126.
 324

sense that each must take the other as its own no run;
and v/e may even say that each in its way has its own
norm in itself.32
Hence the best answer to the question "V/hat is the Will of the
people?" is that which it receives from the conscience of every
man who asks himself the question.
Every other answer is theoretical and abstract, or
worse still, rhetorical and false. Just as one who
sincerely seeks God, can find Him nowhere except in
his own heart, so he who wishes to encounter this
'State' that everyone talks about, though few of them
succeed in framing for themselves a concept of it that
is not completely mythical, should search out within
himself, in his ov/n consciousness, the act through
which his own personality is constituted.33
The moral dialectic of political life generates the
dialectic of legal history. Of itself law cannot have a history
for it is a mechanical thing, fixed in formulas v/hich are v/hat
they are. Legal history must be sought for within the fabric of
political (moral) history. The common objections to this identi-
fication of morals and politics arise from a tendency to take a
legalistic view of morality as something which transcends the will
and expresses itself in objective formulas like those of the law.
History itself is the proof that morality should be assimilated
to the political activity that creates the laws, rather than to
the abstract form of the created product.
These two essays on "Economics and Ethics" and on "Law and
Politics" provided the basis for Gentile's last work, The Genesis
and Structure of Society.34 But there is another essay that is

32
B.989 in B.1157, p. 129.
- 33ioc. cit.
34cf. B.1288, Avvertenza.
 325

also of importance in this respect in which the mature Gentile

settles accounts with his old master, Hegel. We shall end this
chapter, therefore, with a brief consideration .of this essay,
which formed the substance of a communication.to the second Hegel
Congress in Berlin (October 1931).35

4» Forward from Hegel.

In 1904 in his introduction to .the Principles of Ethics of
Spaventa Gentile defended the political theory of Hegel against
certain views which he considered to be mistaken criticisms or
misinterpretations; he showed that he considered himself, in
general, a loyal follower of the Stuttgart philosopher.3° Twenty-
seven years later, looking back after he had developed a
systematic philosophy of his own, he took a much more independent
and critical view of the tradition whence he had sprung. He was
willing to recognize his enormous debt to Hegel but he clearly
distinguished his own from the orthodox Hegelian position.
To begin with, Gentile acknowledged that the concept of the
State as he understood it was the discovery of Hegel. Bown to
Fichte the substantial character of the State went unrecognized
because the individual person was the starting point of all
political theories. As long as the individual was conceived
atomically the State could be no more than an artefact. Only when
man is conceived dialectically as an historical process rather
than an atom does the State emerge as "ethical substance conscious

35B.1017 in B.1157, pp. 103-120.

3°Cf. the discussion above (Chapter III, Section 1 ) .
 326

of itself" fsostanza etica consapevole di sjT) .37 This definition

represents a great advance since the State no longer appears as
the negation of liberty but as the universality through which
alone liberty is possible. The universality of the will develops
through the stages of the family and civil society to its full
concreteness in the State. Authority becomes a power internal
to the individual himself and thus the opposition of liberty and
law is at an end.^ As an actualization of liberty it is
essentially moral: it is a realization of the spirit "which will
be more or less moral, but tends to be absolutely moral."39
When we reflect upon this essential tendency the State therefore
becomes ein Irdisch-Gflttliches.
Hegel then has the merit of being the "herald of a new era".
This, hov/ever, is a role that has its limitations; he is a
"herald, who opens the way, but does not traverse it right to the
end to which it leads."^^ His concept of the State is vitiated
by certain defects which exhibit themselves mainly in the form of
limitations: these defects are the result of a certain residuum

37;Encyclopaediat para. 535. Gentile cites also Philosophie

des Rechts/para. 257 but I do not find the phrase there.
38B.1017 in B.1157, p. 111. In Hegel this "internal"
character may be very implicit and transcendent. We might say
that Gentile is here developing the seeds of Actual Idealism in
Hegel; but it would be as true to say that he is doing himself an
injustice in forcing his own philosophy into an authoritarian form
which is quite contrary to its own logic. There are many pages in
his political writings that are more reminiscent of the Zusatz to
para. 145 of the Philosophie des Rechts than of his own tneory of
authority (cf. for instance his remark about judicial execution
quoted on p. 318 above).
39
ibid., p. 113.
4Qjbid.t p. 114.
 327

of empiricism which remains in his conception of philosophical

method. Hence the basic charge to be made against Hegel is that
he has not mastered the true method of idealism—the method of
immanence.41 More specifically, however, his concept of the
State, which being an ethical substance ought properly to be
infinite, is limited under three aspects.
In the first place it is conceived as a State among other
States: and therefore the Will which actually realizes itself is
not that of the State, but that of the World which evolves in the
process of die Weltgeschichte. Secondly, the State belongs to a
definite stage in the total evolution of the Spirit—the moment
of Objective Spirit; it is flanked by the moments of Subjective
Spirit which has not risen to its level, and Absolute Spirit
which has passed beyond it. Thirdly, even within the Objective
moment it is preceded by the Family and by Civil Society which
form the necessary basis of the State.
If he had grasped the true method of immanence Hegel would
have realized that the State as a spiritual reality is not the
historical entity defined by geographical boundaries. Its
history is not an unfolding panorama of which we can afford to be
mere spectators. For the good citizen his own State is the
spiritual reality, just as his mother is 'Mother' purely and
simply. On this plane the 'other' States have a place in so far
as they are related to 'ours'; and thus they also are 'ours' since

they are essential elements in the determination of its history.

4!B.1017 in B.1157, p. 115.

 328

Hence the real State coincides with die Weltgeschichte.42

Again, once the fundamental identity of individual and State
is recognized, a purely subjective or purely objective phase of
spiritual development is seen to be a mere abstract ideal. The
Spirit is always Absolute. If the State were purely objective it
would remain eternally foreign to the conscience of the citizen:
and if the Absolute transcended both alike it would be incon-
ceivable. The State, like all other spiritual realities, is a
form of philosophy.43

4
^I suspect that Gentile is here attacking a man of straw,
and that his attitude in the reply to Croce (above p. 312) was
sounder.1 Hegel did not mean to deny the identity of the State as
•ethical with World History. The State, he says in one place,
is "the march of God in the world"—a statement which can hardly
be reconciled with the famous tag.that he borrowed from Schiller
("Bie Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgerichte") on any other hypo-
thesis. But his notion of World History is certainly "mythical"
from the point of view of Actual Idealism. He regarded it as a-
spatial progress (Orient-Greece-Rome-Germanic World) so that in
a way his "State" was geographically limited.
43Q-entile had developed this thesis in a paper on "The State
and Philosophy" delivered at the Italian Philosophical Congress
in 1929 (B.980.in B.1075, pp. 174-188). His argument was as
follows:.
Philosophy (as equivalent to conscious thought) is the most
primitive activity of man. The State arises as the universal
moment of this primitive thought, in the form of duty or law. In
his continual effort to realize this universal, man generates the
State as an actual entity. It remains an internal reality,
however, not to be equated with the government, which is only an
element of it. It is never really perfect, but it is at the same
time the ideal that inspires reformers. When conceived statically
—simply as real—it appears to be pure force or economic control.
This is the traditional Catholic view in which it is necessary
to posit a higher (moral) authority. But the ethical (ideal)
character of the State itself is apparent when we reflect that it
could only submit to such an authority through autonomous moral
action.
It follows that in philosophy the State's attitude must be:
nihil humani alienum. But it cannot be agnostic; it must have a
doctrine. Tne possession of such a doctrine is the foundation of
its right to educate: " The State has the right to teach because
 329

Finally, if the State is the universal moment of individual

consciousness it is obvious that lesser communities like the
Family or what Hegel calls Civil Society are only empirically or
abstractly distinguishable from it. The Family for its nuembers,
when they act as its members, exhausts the whole ethical world.
From the ethical point of view the fact that Family and State
have different natural bases is irrelevant, for in ethical action
the 'natural' character of both is annulled. Family and State
cannot concretely be compared, since for the good citizen the
State absorbs the Family completely. "In its spiritual actuality
the family is State, and the State is family."44 Civil Society,
the State deprived of its ethical consciousness and reduced to a
merely economic association, is a pure abstraction always overcome

it has a doctrine, it knows the end of the Nation, it knows the

value of this end: and its knowledge is not an abstraction, but
is related to the past and to the actual present, and to the
living and perpetual forces of the nation, since res sua agitur.
And always he who teaches has a right to teach: this' is the
essential law of the spirit, which has given and always will give
authority and educative efficacy to the man who knows, over the
one who does not, and to the man who knows more over the one who
knows less." (B.98O in B.1075, p. 184).
This does not mean there is a State truth. The State—at
least the legitimate State—is nothing other than the universal
self-consciousness of the citizens. Furthermore the truth it
inculcates must be the real truth: this is not something fixed;
it lives and grows, and it dies if this self-critical growing
character is not respected. It must take critical cognizance of
the views of independent citizens. The philosophy of the State
must evolve through a dialectic of opposed views watched over by
the State (cf. Gentile's plea for free discussion within the
Fascist Party "watched-over" by the leaders—above, Chapter VI,
p. 282). The thought that triumphs in the struggle is the real
philosophy of the State.
This paper of 1929 offers an interesting contrast to
Gentile's 1 resolute opposition to anything in the nature of an
•official philosophy in 1907 (cf. above, Chapter III, p. 105).
44
B.1017 in B.1157, p. 126.
 330

in any real community, however rudimentary its organization.45

In view of his general theory of the relation between
economics and ethics, this dismissal of the 'outward' moment of
the dialectic by which the State is constituted in Hegel's system
is not surprising: in place of Civil Society in Gentile's triad
there stands the School. But his refusal to allow a distinction
between the Family and the State is not quite so easy to accept
since, as we saw, he tends to regard the Family as an immediate
natural basis for community life.4° we should remember that he
always insisted that life in the Family was only quasi-natural
an L
° relatively immediate. In attaching to it these epithets, he
was speaking from the point of view of a member of the more
inclusive community—the State. In this paper he is equally
concerned to stress the ambiguous character of all life, which
has always a natural, instinctive aspect as well as a spiritual
aspect: but he does so from a nev/ angle.
We cannot say that the family is "immediate or natural
spirit" (as Hegel does in the Encyclopaedia, section
517); nor is it true that the spirit "ist als Familie
empfindender Geist" (section 518). The same immediacy,
the same feeling Qsentire'] is found also in the emotions
Csentimentol of politics or patriotism, in so far as
they are mere emotion.47
His point is that the objective, systematic rigidity of Hegel's
theory involves an illegitimate separation of two aspects of

45|iegel himself recognized that historically the State is

usually established before the economic differentiation that is
typical of Civil Society develops. But he insisted nevertheless
on its logical priority. In this matter, Croce is a more ortho-
dox Hegelian than Gentile.
4$cf. Chapter IV, Section 2; especially pp. 122-125.
47B.1017 in B.1157, p. 119, fn. 2.
 331

of reality which form a dialectical unity.

Nevertheless, anyone who read this paper alone might well
be left with the impression that his philosophy was less Hegelian
than it really was. In 1904 he was concerned to persuade his
readers that his own budding philosophy of immanence was the true
interpretation of Hegel. In 1931, he advanced his theory rather
as what Hegel ought to have meant. In the interim he had broken
decisively with the 'encyclopaedic' ideal in philosophy, and hence
the material separation, in Hegel's system, of elements which are
properly only ideal moments, now appeared to him as a defect to
be castigated and not merely explained away.
 332

CHAPTER VIII

"THE GENESIS ANB STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY"

1. Biographical and historical background.

Gentile's last work—which despite its comparative brevity
deserves to be counted among his greatest—was written during a
period of personal and political crisis. Like several of his
other books—the Philosophy of Law, for example—it was based
upon a course of University lectures. He completed the manuscript
in the space of four or five weeks in August and September of 1943;
and although he lived to review both typescript and proofs he
made no corrections at any stage. He was dead before the book
finally went to press and it was not published until two years
later in 1946.
In his brief Preface he tells us that the work was written
as a relief for my mind in days full of anxiety for
every Italian, and to fulfil a civil duty, since I
saw no other course open to me in thinking of that
future Italy for which I have laboured all my life.
It forms a sort of epitaph on his life as a Fascist and, as Br.
Mario Rossi has suggestedl j_t goes some way towards explaining
why he joined in the last mad attempt to resurrect the dead.
Thanks to his son Benedetto, we are now able to understand fairly
clearly just what was in his mind during this period.2
The Rome-Berlin axis came into existence late in 1936, at
about the time when the whole school of 'Fascist Idealism' went

Ijoumal of Philosophy, XLVII (1950), p. 217.

2Giovanni Gentile; La vita e_ il pensiero, Vol. IV: Pal
Biscorso agli Italian! alia morie, Florence, Sanson!, 1951.
 333

into eclipse following the withdrawal of recognition from the

Fascio di educazione nazionale.3 i have not been able to find
any reference by Gentile to the military alliance, but it is
certain that he must have viewed with discomfort, if not positive
alarm, the gradual growth of German influence, which resulted in
the promulgation and at least partial implementation of a series
of racialist measures which were completely inimical to his
ideal of Fascism.4
Even when Italy invaded France in 1940, he does not seem to
have made any public pronouncement.2 xn June 1940 he made his
rather obsequious speech in support of the new organization of
the secondary schools.° But he more than redeemed himself a few
months later at the National Philosophical Congress in Florence.
It was, as he said, the first time that he had appeared on the
platform of the National Congress for ten years; his speech was
for the most part a witty, though somewhat arrogant defence of

3cf. Minio-Paluello, op_. cit., p. 67.

4". . . our culture is not a crude racialism, nor is it
narrowly, that is, geographically, Mediterranean, but intelli-
gently universal and human." (B.1144, February 1936, in B.1139,
p. 384).
2This statement should be regarded with caution. Gentile
published several articles in this period which I have not seen.
But his article of 1941 on "The Philosophy of Fascism" (B.1246)
contains nothing new and is-chiefly remarkable for its silences.
He does not mention the German alliance, the race policy, or even
the state of war that actually existed. It would be dangerous to
infer too much from his silence; but considering his general view
of war, and the tremendous importance that is assigned in his
philosophy to the historical situation that actually exists (cf.
"The Philosophy of the War", discussed above, Chapter IV,
pp. 149-152), it is certainly surprising.
6
B.1232, see above, Chapter VI, pp. 291-292.
his own idealism against various critics. But at the end he
adverted briefly to the political situation:
Intellectualisml That is the defect that the
politicians sniff at in philosophy today. And therefore
they more or less distrust philosophers as people who
are ready enough to accept the Party card, but never
want to compromise themselves more than is strictly
necessary, despite the fact that acceptance of the
membership card, which the Fascist Party meant to be
regarded as a sign of the adhesion of the Italian
citizen to the revolution that it is bringing about,
involves the most compromising oath that one can think
of. And the truth is that for obvious reasons, which
there is no need to analyse here, there are far more
Party members than Fascists; the deplorable distinction
that is a consequence of this, has made a great breach
in the spirit of the Italians. Intus ut libet etc.
tlnwardly as one pleases]. Speech is one thing and
practice another. This is precisely the opposite of what
the Fascist doctrine v/as meant to inculcate; and by
digging a ditch between the science and the man, it
separates philosophy from the soul, which should be
wholly poured forth in it, to seek or in other words,
to construct its own world. . . .
. . . On the one hand, abstract philosophy without a
hold on practical life; and on the other, practical
life which vindicates itself by reacting from without
and smashing the liberty of the spirit that is disposed
towards intellectualism. Hence moral effects that are
far from happy, and lead to that absence of seriousness,
that sterility of philosophy to which we have repeatedly
alluded. On one side a demoralizing byzantinism; on
the other an ostentatious passion that is hypocrisy and
corruption of character, and may make of the philosopher
a socially insignificant figure to be chased into the
attic along with the owls, instead of the master of
life that he ought to be.7
For the previous ten years Gentile had been hinting that a
discipline based on fear would destroy all inward sincerity. Now,
when Italy was at war, he at last chose to admit that this had
happened. This was an action that required some courage. But
according to one witness present at the Congress he went further:

7B.1241, PP. 48-50.

 335

It was Gentile, I remember, (^writes Gustavo Bontadini],

who at the Philosophical Congress at Florence in
October 1940, declared that he preferred the man who
refused the "Party—Card" to save his conscience to the
man who made.the opposite refusal. I did not find
these words in the speech as printed: but still the
fact remains that to have said this then—the campaign
in Greece had not yet begun—constituted at once an
act of courage and of foresight."
In Beeember 1941 he preached sermons on a similar text at
the "First National Convention of Philosophic Studies" in Rome.
Here he made a passionate plea for the freedom and autonomy of
the Universities which he had always supported. I do not think
that his pleading was of any avail. He scarcely even expected to
be listened to by this time.
It was only as the tide of defeat threatened to destroy the
whole Fascist Regime that Gentile came forward, as he had done
after Caporetto in 1917 to reaffirm his faith at a time when
others drew back. In June 1943, when the Allied invasion of
Italy was already close at hand, Carlo Scorza, the Secretary of
the Fascist Party invited a number of prominent Italians to
address a great public gathering in Rome. Gentile alone accepted
the invitation—despite anonymous letters threatening his life.
The Address to the Italians which he delivered was primarily
an expression of faith in Italy as a nation, and an appeal for
national solidarity in a moment of mortal crisis. He emphasized
at the outset that he was not speaking merely as a partisan of
Fascism:
This discourse is addressed to all Italians who
have Italy in their hearts: an Italy that is not a
matter of empty rhetoric, but something living and

Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. I, p. 119.

 33©

working in their thoughts and wills. I speak as a

Fascist, and I am proud of it because I am profoundly
conscious that I am an Italian, and therefore I speak
first of all as an Italian who has something to say
to all Italians, Fascists and non-Fascists, Fascists
of the letter and .Fascists of the spirit, Fascists
of the Party-card and Fascists of the faith. I say
Fascists of the Party-card and Fascists of the faith,
because I have always held that-the distinction was
necessary in order not to confuse the ideal prin-
ciple . . . with material deviations . . . And I have
always held that Party members and non-members alike
could all be Italians, agreed about essentials even
though dissenting about forms of political discipline:
all Italians and therefore all virtually Fascists,
because sincerely zealous for an Italy that shall
count in the world, and be worthy of her past.9
He admitted that there had been many bad Fascists; but he
felt that the ideal of the Revolution was something above the
personalities—an ideal to which many honest men who disdained to
join the Party had been faithful:
. . . even though they sometimes remain enmeshed in
inconsistent and fallacious ideologies, harboured in
their heads like that bundle of prejudices that every
man fails to expel and carries with him all his life
. . . a burden more or less harmless to his character
and practical effectiveness in action.10
Such was the ideal which Gentile claimed to serve; he was not "a
member of a party which divides, but a follower of a concept
which can bind in a single faith and a common policy all who are
truly Italians."11
He recalled how he had written after Caporetto that "an
Italy destined to perish as a result of military defeat would

" B . 1 2 6 5 ; reprinted by Benedetto Gentile in Vita e pensiero,

Vol. IV, p. 67.
I0
loc. cit.
Hjbid., p. 68.
 337

no longer be worthy to live."12 The Fascists had grown up in

that faith. It was true that they had destroyed "that false,
that bastard tyrannical liberty that was the liberty of the
parliamentary regime." But they had put in its place a more
concrete form of liberty—the liberty of the Corporate State.
Even the self-styled 'democracies' had abandoned the old style
liberalism—"liberty in those countries has fallen to the ground,
and there can be no salvation for it except in a Corporative
organization."13
Fascism had stood and still stood for the national tradition
and the national spirit. Italy had found in the voice of Musso-
lini a powerful expression of her existence as a nation. Now the
enemy was at the gates. This was not the time to stand aside and
wait on the event:
No Italian has today the right to say:—This is not
my war; I did not will i t — . There is no one in
Italy who takes a more or less active part in the life
of the nation, who has not willed the war in which our
Country is involved. He will have willed it indirectly
if not by direct decision. . . . For a war such as
this . . . is not conceivable as the arbitrary
resolution of one or more individuals. . . . A much
higher agency is at work, an agency that is human,
but which makes one think of God . . . Fata trahunt;
and all recrimination in a moment of peril is base-
ness. The desire to stand aside, while the fire rages
and it is the duty of all to help in quenching it, is
cowardly.14

It will not have escaped the reader that the direct quota-
tion from War and Faith is not the only echo of the First World

12B.1265; Benedetto Gentile, op. cit., p. 69. (Cf. B.384

in B.497, p. 62, cited above in Chapter V, p. 199).
1
3jbid., p. 71.
1
4jbid., pp. 76-77.
 33a

War in this speech. The situation in Italy was not dissimilar.

In both cases the War was 'political'—undertaken by the Govern-
ment in power for the sake of immediate advantage and not out of
a necessity recognized by the people as a whole. Gentile strove
hard to persuade his audience that this was a mistaken view; but
the facts were too much for him—one feels that perhaps just a
little he was striving to convince himself.
The objective likelihood of victory or defeat seemed to him
irrelevant. Victory would ultimately depend precisely on the
efforts of those who were trying to calculate the chances. The
calculation involved the worst of sins—an attempt to fit the
free life of the spirit onto the Procrustean bed of the natural
world. The essential thing was to have faith in victory—to
conquer one's own self;-
I have always been, and I boast of always "being, an
optimist. But the optimism that is sane and legitimate
does not concern the events that are in the hands of
God, but radiates from within our own conscience and
our own personality: it is the optimism of one who
believes and by his faith creates the good to which he
aspires . . .12
In July came the invasion of his native Sicily; on the 15th
he left Rome to spend the hot summer months at Troghi near
Florence. On the 25th Mussolini was deposed by a conspiracy
hatched in the Palace and involving various prominent Fascist
leaders. This event was naturally a complete surprise to
Gentile; the general tenor of the Address to the Italians will
provide some idea of what a shock it must have been for him. But
he loyally expressed his willingness to obey and cooperate with

B.1265, Benedetto Gentile, op_. cit., p. 78.

 339

the new government of Marshal Badoglio. There followed a nasty

little incident in which his loyalty and trust were betrayed, and
his offer of cooperation rudely rejected. Severi, the new
Minister of Education was, if not quite a personal friend, an old
colleague of his. Gentile wrote to congratulate him upon his
appointment and received a cordial reply. Four days later, how-
ever, on August 6 there appeared in the press a personal letter
from Severi to Gentile thanking him for three letters of "advice"
but informing him that it was unacceptable:
. . . I cannot accept Your advice because from 1924
right down to the unhappy address of June 24th of this
year You did not hesitate to put yourself at the
service of tyranny—and what tyranny—and with the
authority of Your name, at that time beyond discussion,
contributed more than so many others to reinforce it.
The young, learning, the truth, were so far betrayed
that a Minister of National Education in a government
that is reviving liberty can no longer have you among
its counsellors.16
This letter gave the signal for a general- attack on him by the
national press. The filosofia del manganello returned to plague
him in the pages of the Giornale d'Italia which declared:
He broke the united front of culture which ought to
have been the front of liberty and human dignity, not
so much with acts of servile surrender which would
perhaps have deserved pity as the results of a weak
temperament, as with acts of deliberate corruption
and perversion of intellectual and moral values, which
gave a false appearance of liberty to servitude, of
national dignity to party faction, of high educational
value to the brutal use of the blackjack.17

l^Benedetto Gentile, ojo. cit. , p. 22. (I have capitalized

the personal pronoun where Lei is used in the-Italian text,
although this is contrary to English practice,.in order to indi-
cate as far as possible the tone of ironic politeness by which
this letter adds insult to injury. The Fascists had prohibited,
or attempted to prohibit, the use of Lei: Gentile used Voi in
his private reply).
17
ibid., p.'23.
 340'

While on the other side the Fascist Republicans assailed him a

little later on as a turncoat who had offered his services to the
betrayers of Italy. For them he was a "funambolo" (rope walker).
Just what was in the three letters to Severi it is diffi-
cult to say: but Gentile explicitly denied in a private letter
to Biggini (Mussolini's last Minister of Education) that he had
offered his assistance to Severi, and declared that he had merely
made one or two recommendations of an administrative nature,
especially concerning the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa of
which he was at that time Birector.
Publicly Gentile preserved an absolute silence. He drafted
a private reply to Severi in which he angrily rejected the charge
of betraying Italian culture, and rightly stigmatized the whole
letter as a deliberate attempt to place him in what its author
knew to be a false light.
{[Not even one of the worst Fascists of former times
would have behaved worse than this}. While I should
have had the right to find in you a loyal witness
to all that I have done in defence of Italian culture,
more and better than any other Italian in these last
twenty troubled years. For you have always been near
me, Cand you know the battles I have fought, the
persecutions secret and open of which I have been the
object because I have always defended learning and the
school}.18
He also referred to the Enciclopedia Italiana in terms which we
have previously had occasion to quote;19 and concluded by
j
l^Benedetto Gentile, oja. cit. , p. 25. I have italicized
where Gentile used the Fascist voi with a capital letter.
Benedetto Gentile persuaded his lather to remove the sentences
in square brackets, together with all other direct references to
the Fascists, and in the letter as sent they were replaced by a
reminder that Severi was one of those who had come to his house
to congra-tulate him after the "unhappy" Address to the Italians.
19
Cf. Chapter VI, p. 256.
 341

resigning all the offices that he held under the Ministry, saying
that, in obedience to the Royal Proclamation at the time of
Mussolini's fall, he was resolved not to engage in polemics and
recriminations about the past.
In view of his previous record it was impossible for the
new Government to continue to employ him in any public post.
That much may be granted. But the unforgivable rudeness and
cruel malice of the Minister of Education,20 which made Gentile
the target of all those anxious to demonstrate their new-born
anti-Fascist fervour, is set in relief by the courtesy with
which the Foreign Minister handled the same problem. From the
time of its foundation in 1933 Gentile had been President of the
Italian Institute for the Middle and Far East. He wished now to
resign this post; but his friends persuaded him to leave the
onus of decision on the Government so he contented himself with
a letter of inquiry as to official intentions. The Minister
replied:
While I am very sorry that present circumstances
lead us to provide for your replacement as President
of the afore-mentioned Institute, I desire to express
to you, on behalf of my ministry, the most lively
thanks for the work you have performed.21
Such were the cares from which Gentile sought to distract

^uSeveri's position later was none too secure: certain

people appealed to Gentile to allow his reply to be used in poli-
tical manoeuvres against him, but he steadily maintained his
refusal to publish it. Various factions published apocryphal
versions suited to their own desires but even of these he took no
public notice. Only once, and then privately, he wrote to the
editor of a Fascist Republican newspaper to protest against the
employment of this abuse even by the party which he was supporting
(this was in November).
2lBenedetto Gentile, op. cit., p. 30.
 342

his mind by v/orking on his last book, in the period between the
fall of Mussolini and the proclamation of the Armistice.

2. The Transcendental Society and the Socius.

The novelty of this last work according to Gentile's own
statement,22 ±s to be found in its fourth chapter, in which the
doctrine of the "internal society" is for the first time syste-
matically developed.
The first three chapters briefly recapitulate conclusions
fully expounded in many earlier works. First, he sets forth the
doctrine that the moral law must be immanent in action and cannot
be conceived as transcending it (Chapter I). Morality is not a
matter of 'habit'; philosophically the concept of 'habit' is
illegitimate, since the spirit never really repeats itself. The
act of consciousness is unique and eternal; but it is not simply
a spontaneous upsurge of energy. It is both will and intellect;
and the distinction of theory and practice—which are both alike
realms of activity subject to moral law—is generated within it.
This fundamental act is essentially ethical and therefore self-
terminating. "The object of human creativity is man himself . , .
praemium yirtutis ipsamet virtus."23 Immorality is fundamentally
laziness, the arrest of this creative process. The creation of
self is the conquest of the natural otherness of the world.
In order to understand this conquest of otherness we must
understand the nature of the individual self (Chapter II). The

^<\B.1288, Avvertenza.
23ibid., p. 6.
 343

Aristotelian notion of the individual as an object of thought was

a serious error; the true individual is the Whole, the Subject
who gives to his world an organic unity—Man. The individual
man is a member of society, a political animal; but this does not
mean that he is one atom among others. He is conscious of his
status in society, that is, he makes himself one with it. The
symbol of this unity is language—the heritage of his community
which is so intimate to his own being that he would not be an
individual, a creature capable of saying "I", without it. Because
of the essential universality of his thought and action he seeks
public approval from his fellows. This is the root of the human
thirst for "glory" and "fame".24 Only a weak spirit, however,
regards this outward agreement as the final test of his thought
and action. Vox populi vox Dei, but only in the end. The really
universal tribunal to which man appeals is that of his own
conscience. Within him speaks the voice of an ideal community; it
is only in virtue of his membership of this inner community that he
is able to enter any empirical society. This is the community of
culture founded on a primitive feeling of unity (the 'brotherhood
of Man'), and developed through the study of the human heritage.
When the eternal act of consciousness is conceived thus, as
moral membership of an ideal society, the notion of "character"
takes on a new significance (Chapter III). It is no longer a
matter of 'habit' formed by repetition of actions that satisfy
some external standard, but the unity of the present with this
ideal past in a single act. Character is not the repetition of

24B.1288, p. 17.
the past but its actual living presence. Even the ancients
recognized that it was a property of life as a whole. But they
conceived the wholeness as something material and expressed their
conclusion in the famous adage of Solon: "Call no man happy
until he is dead." The truth is that character is a spiritual
wholeness or integrity realized, if at all, in the dialectic of
the eternal present between the individual and his conscience.
No man can display publicly a firmness of character which he does
not possess; in his own mind.
Thus far, Gentile has developed the theory of morality
which he held even before he had developed his own systematic
outlook. But this is not sufficient; for, according to his own
criterion of absolute immanence, the distinction between 'ideal'
and 'empirical1, the inward and the outward, is itself a crude
and dangerous empirical one.25 rjine individual does not form a
society simply with his conscience, or with the tradition of
humanity as he understands it, but with other individuals, men
like himself, but men who may not understand this tradition quite
as he does. Gentile's speculative account of morality fails
unless a "spiritual" interpretation for these relations can be
found; for it cannot be too often emphasized that, in his view,
these ideal explanations are what constitute the very reality of
the real. They constitute the meaning of reality for conscious-
ness—and a reality without a meaning is nothing.
We speak in empirical terms of meeting 'others'
in society; but the truth is that these others do hot

25cf. B.890 in which he answers a critic who endeavoured to

distinguish between the State in interiore homine and the State
inter homines.
 345

fall from heaven on the individual who has to deal

with them, as an absolutely new world of conscious-
ness for him, which creates a revolution in his life.
It may be that, within himself, he already knows a
certain 'other' apart from himself.26
Thus Gentile introduces his fully developed theory of society in
interiore homine. Society, he goes on, is immanent in any real
individual because there is no Ego that does not contain an
'other' which is its essential 'associate' (socius)—an object
that is not simply a thing, but a subject like the Ego itself.
The Ego is neither immediately equivalent to itself nor immedi-
ately other than itself. The immediate is a mere abstraction
from reality, which is process. All the problems of the philo-
sophical tradition arise from the separation of subject from
object.27 The real Subject is the dialectic of the act which
posits the particular subject and object as distinct.28 Taken as
independent these distinct moments lose their distinctness: they
grow vague to the point of complete disappearance. Without con-
sciousness the world is nothing, as consciousness is nothing
without the world. This absolute nothingness however is not
thinkable since thinking it concretely would involve the denial
of thought.29

^DB.1288, p. 32.
21
ibid., p. 34, fn. 1.
28
cf. on this point B.409 in B.561, p. 195.
2°Unlike Croce, Gentile did not take a completely negative
view of Existentialism, though he felt that the effort to trans-
plant it from Germany into Italy was a mistake. In his address;
to the Philosophical Congress in 1940 he admitted that the
Existentialists at least offered something new in place of the
stale controversies of his other adversaries: "The gods be
thanked for it ^existentialism}; for whether one gets much or
 346

Since the reality of the subject consists in its unity

with the object, the latter cannot continue in the negative
opposition in which it first presents itself. In one way or
another the duality must be resolved. Thus the child and the
poet personify everything: since the subject speaks the object
must speak also. This is the first naive attempt to resolve the
opposition in a synthesis. The object is transformed directly
into another subject endowed with full life and liberty: and the
transformation is essential to the subject which "in order to be
itself must renounce, inevitably, its own solitude."30
Roughly speaking, we may say that this 'renunciation of
solitude' is the great novelty of Gentile's last work. Even the
second volume of the Logica, in which the theory of the alter as
socius briefly appears,31 ±3 dominated by the contrary doctrine

little out of it, there is at least the great advantage of

getting away from the continual to and fro of trite arguments and
commonplaces . . . [But} . . . it may be that in Italy the specu-
lative need to which existentialism answers, the need of the
moment of individuality in the universality of the spirit, was
previously recognized by actualism and satisfied more fully than
that doctrine is able to satisfy it." (B.1241, pp. 45-46).
There is no doubt that he was,.among other things, striving
to validate this conclusion in his last work. He emphasizes the
existentialist elements in his own theory (the moment of non-
being, etc.), while at the same time pointing out that they are
only moments in a wider synthesis. Existentialism stops short at
the angst of the spirit over its awn non-being. It does not
recognize the contradiction that is involved here, because it does
not grasp its own actuality, its own positivity. In concrete
experience "angst Cangosciaj itself conquers itself: for angst
also is consciousness, even though turbid and heavy, it is an act
which frees the Ego and the world from non-being."
(B.1288, p. 35).
30 B # 1 2 88, p. 36.
31B.1250, p . 110. Cf. a b o v e , C h a p t e r IV, p p . 1 6 0 - 1 6 2 .
of the "eternal solitude of the Spirit".32 We mu3t take care,
however, not to treat the new doctrine as a direct contradiction
of the old: the 'unity of the Spirit' remains the Alpha and
Omega of Gentile's idealism. It is because of this underlying
unity that the simple object is bound to be assimilated to the
subject; only, since this assimilation and the resulting explicit
unity are always social in character the unity does not imply
solitude.
The maintenance of this transcendental society is quite
independent of the accidental presence or absence of 'other'
people. In thought we talk to ourselves, even though we think in
silence; when we write, we also read what we have written; in
dreams this internal society is externalized and presented as an
empirical fact. All conscious activity involves this duality of
persons; and society in the ordinary sense of the word is rooted
in this transcendental dialogue. The gregarious animals such as
sheep and wolves have no society; nor, for that matter, do the
so-called 'social insects', ants, bees, etc. For no one supposes
them to be possessed of this internal social consciousness.
Gentile is very anxious that we should realize that his
doctrine of the 'inner society' is meant to be taken seriously:
I trust that no one will overlook the importance
of this concept, which is for us the keystone of the
great social edifice. And it is to be hoped that no
one will come to the conclusion that the fact we have
observed has only the mere significance of a metaphor,
as has hitherto been commonly believed . . .33

32cf. B.1250, p p . 21-22 f o r example.

3 3 B . 1 2 8 8 , p . 39.
 348

The 'otherness' involved in this internal society is not less real

or easier to overcome than that which is involved in ordinary
social relations. Indeed all'external' relations are mediated
through it; and this process of mediation is not by any means
always as difficult as the familiar task of 'making up one's own
mind'. The desires and passions that we must conquer in ourselves
have each of them a personal voice to which we must give heed.
Sometimes we cannot understand ourselves; but this, above all,
we must do—it is our primary duty. The 'other1 within us
cannot remain an enemy whose common humanity we do not recognize,
though in Gentile's view society still begins in enmity and
conflict:
What a distance there is from the contra hostes
aeterna auctoritas esto ^against enemies let there
be absolute power eternally3 to the Christian love
of one's neighbouri Absolute pov/er does not recog-
nize the man in the enemy; and our neighbour on the
other hand is completely one with us. But the hostis
is always with us; and no love is a more firm and"
secure possession than that which arises in the
novitiate of self-conquest, when the bond of conquest
between us and the enemy becomes the bond of brother-
hood tquello che si conquista attraverso un tirocinio
di conquista e di affratellamento dell'altro con noil.34-
We saw earlier that the first appearance of Gentile's
doctrine of societas in interiore homine was marred by an undue
emphasis on the moment of conflict.35 it seems to me that his
final statement of the argument still suffers from this over-
emphasis. In personal self-discipline it is often the case that
a particular desire must be absolutely denied until it can be

34B.1288, p. 40.
35cf. Chapter IV, pp. 147-156.
 349

redirected. But in normal social relations it is the unity rather

than the duality that is, or should be, primitive. The enemy who
is not human and has no rights is not a person; only when some
rights are conceded to him can society—even transcendental
society—exist at all. The truth is not that enmity is a
necessary element in society, but rather that society involves
at least an 'ideal' conquest of enmity similar to the conquest
which Gentile speaks of in his theory of pain and evil. Even
Nature, the realm of mere 'things', can only be mastered if her
integrity is respected—as the sculptor, for instance, respects
the character and quality of the stone on which he works. The
phenomenon of mutual respect deserves far more emphasis in
Gentile's theory than it receives. The main weakness inherent
in all forms of Fascism seems to me to be a failure to recognize
the necessary priority of this mutual respect in all social
relationships.
Gentile's claim that his doctrine has never been stated by
anyone else may well seem rather extreme. Croce remarked once
that the individual is a sort of society.36 But in a metaphorical
sense the remark is a commonplace; and although Croce obviously
attached some philosophical importance to it he certainly did not
take it as literally as Gentile does. He did not use the idea
in any of his more strictly theoretical writings so far as I am
aware. Again, other writers than Gentile have grasped the fact
that communication with others is, first and foremost,

Etica e_ politica, p. 127; cf. The Conduct of Life, p. 180.

 350

communication with oneself.37 But in general, they have thought

of this communication with others as something essentially
different from the logically prior communication with oneself.
The most interesting parallel to Gentile's denial of this
common assumption, is Josiah Royce's theory of the "community of
interpretation". As long ago as 1867 C. S. Peirce advanced the
thesis that the self is not directly intuited but known through
an internal dialogue generated by contact with others. Man comes
to recognize himself as a particular person primarily through
the discovery that his interpretations of experience are fallible
in relation to commonly accepted interpretations presented in
the testimony of others. Royce, in the second volume of his
Problem of Christianity, took this notion along with Peirce's
theory of reasoning as a triadic relation in which two terms are
mediately connected through a third (the 'interpretant'), and
generalized from them with great speculative boldness. He used
Peirce's discovery that self-consciousness is ultimately depen-
dent on membership of a community to justify his own ethical
contention that "We are saved by the community"; and he perceived
that the process of self-knowledge is
. . . outwardly embodied in the whole world's history.
For what we all mean by past time is a realm of events,
whose historical sense, whose records, whose lessons
we may now interpret in so far as our memory and the
documents furnish us the evidences for such interpre-
tation. 38

37e.g. Herbert Wildon-Carr, Cogitans Cogitata, London,

The Favil Press, 1930, passim.
38The Problem of Christianity, Vol. II, New York, Macmillan,
1913, p. 145.
 351

This definition is not far from the Gentilian identification

of res gestae and historia rerum gestarum. Yet despite this simi-
larity and the many other resemblances which might be discovered
between these two 'philosophies of Christianity' in a detailed
analysis which deserves to be made but which the present writer
is not now competent to make, the two philosophers remain poles
apart in metaphysics. For Royce ultimate reality was always an
objective totality (that is, from the Gentilian point of view,
a transcendent or presupposed logos): he advanced from the idea
of a unique absolute consciousness that perceived "all at once"
(totum simul) to that of an infinite and perfect system of
"interpretation". While Gentile, on the other hand, moved from
an immanent dialectic of eternal moments to a transcendental
dialogue of ideal persons. In both cases the transformation
occurred because the parties recognized that, as Royce puts it:
. . . interpretation £i.e. what Gentile calls
'thought'l is a conversation, and not a lonely enter-
prise. There is some one, in the realm of psycho-
logical happenings, who addresses some one.39
But the problems they v/ere seeking to solve were quite
different. Royce began from an accepted plurality and strove
towards the establishment of a systematic unity: it seems to me
that his was the problem of dynamic order, the problem that
Leibniz bequeathed, of how to supply the monads with windows.
Gentile began from the actual unity of consciousness and strove
to derive from it all the multifarious determinations of histor-
ical experience: his was the problem of the growth of

39op_. cit., p. 148.

 352.

consciousness bequeathed by Fichte*s interpretation of Kant, and

clearly formulated by Spaventa's interpretation of Hegel. Gentile
was probably acquainted with the last phase of Royce's thought,
though I doubt whether it influenced him. For although Peirce
and Royce anticipated his analysis of the social character of
self-consciousness, and developed it in greater detail and with
more precision, there is every reason to suppose that Gentile's
doctrine developed independently when we consider the steady
development of his thought from 1912 to 1922. Certainly Royce
did not and never could have anticipated the doctrine of the
'transcendental society' that Gentile developed in his last work:,
without a prior recognition, not merely of the legitimacy of, but
of the absolute necessity for, Gentile's "method of pure
immanence", such an interpretation could hardly have occurred to
anyone. And for this reason alone it would be fair to say that
Gentile's claim that his thesis has never been developed by any-
one else is justified; from his point of view Peirce and Royce
both erred by stopping short at a half-truth. They saw that all
self-consciousness is social: but they failed to see that all
consciousness of society is therefore self-consciousness. 41-

When we turn to consider Gentile's thesis in relation to his

own earlier thought it is not quite so easy to define wherein the

40cf. Chapter IV above, especially Section 5. In this

g eriod he was almost certainly not acquainted with the work of
oyce's last phase.
41one might object that Royce did hold that all conscious-
ness was self-consciousness. But the self to which he referred
the totality of consciousness was transcendent; and therefore the
consciousness of the Great Community is not 'self-consciousness'
in Gentile's sense.
 353

the novelty, of which he seems to have been so proudly conscious,

consists. It must be stated at once that the doctrine of the
transcendental society is a natural development of ideas and
theories hammered out years before. Two elements at least can
be traced back to the earliest stage in Gentile's thought: the
theory of language as inherently communal or universal, and the
argument that an empirical duality is irrelevant to the process,
of communication. For the rest, the doctrine of the dialectic
of subject and object as constitutive of individuality was
developed in the period of the great systematic works; but it is
there inextricably interwoven with the moral dialectic of
particular and universal. Perhaps this offers the best justifi-
cation for the claim that the new doctrine is original. Society,
in the earlier version, coincides immediately with the State and
the two terms cannot be distinguished; whereas here the coinci-
dence is mediated, and so the terms are, in a sense, distinct—
just as the two great Commandments are distinct though they
cannot be separated.
The State, as we already know, has its transcendental
ground inman's relation with his conscience. The law of
conscience in relation to society is given in the Christian
admonition "Love thy neighbour as thyself." We must understand,
however, that the neighbour is not truly distinct from and
opposed to the self, but unified with it. Not that all distinct-
ness should or can be destroyed; the material external otherness,
must be reduced to the internal spiritual otherness of our own
thoughts. At this level understanding our neighbour means
loving and sympathizing with him. "Love is not the consequence
 354

but the conclusion and perfection of knowledge."42

All reality is ethical. Truth is not an ideal of the
abstract intellect, but the reality that is served in perfect
freedom: and all the spiritual disvalues, errors and sins alike,
are ethical disvalues—expressions of that angst, that awareness
of the void, which lies in the depths of the self. As soon as
this consciousness of the void becomes reflective, the negative,
absolutely past character of all evil and error is apparent.
Sin is only real as a moment of the process of repentance. This
does not mean that 'whatever is, is right1: for once we have
grasped the fundamental unity that exists between ourselves and
others we shall recognize that the evil which seems to deserve
condemnation in the activities of these others, is our responsi-
bility also, and therefore requires repentance and amendment on
our part. The eternal presence of this moment of turning away
from the past is the meaning, for Gentile, of the doctrine of
Original Sin.43

3. The State.
There is no need to go into detail here concerning the
identity of the moral will with the State, or the objectivity of
law as something already willed. We need only point out once
again that Gentile admits that the government which makes the law

42B.1288, p. 47.
43'Cf. B.1288, p. 55. Here again it is interesting to compare
Royce's interpretation of the Pauline doctrine as a condemnation
of ethical individualism. (Gentile's doctrine is in this case
the more abstract—but that is because the terms of his problem
are much stricter. The practical significance of the two theories
is virtually identical. Cf. below, p. 376).
 355-

is, like the law that it makes, only an abstract moment in the
dialectic of the actual will which is the State proper.
. . . just as positive law is cancelled in the
actuality of ethical action, so every opposition of
Government and governed vanishes in the consent of
the latter, without which the Government cannot
stand.44
This consent is never simply spontaneous, however. Always there
is an element of coercion: and just how much coercion is justi-
fiable under given circumstances cannot be decided a priori by
an appeal to abstract principles. Herein lies the error of
traditional liberalism.
The account which Gentile gives of the coincidence of
individual liberty with the power of the State is an unsatis-
factory in this book as elsewhere. He argues, fairly enough,
that there can be no freedom for the citizen unless his community
possesses real independence of action, and that no revolution is
truly anarchic in intention. But he- makes no attempt to examine
and clarify the appalling ambiguities of his conclusion: "So then,
only the individual in the free State is free. Or better still
the free individual is the one who is the free State . . . "45
He remarks in a footnote that external independence involves War
and hence a limitation of liberty within the State—and with that
he passes on to a summary critique of the Crocian doctrine of the
State as force or simple economic power, and the reassertion of
the ethical character of the State. It cannot be said that this
chapter (VI) on the State is a very fortunate one: it has too

44B.1288, p. 59.
45jhid., p. 66.
much the air of a defensive polemic.
The discussion of the relation between the State and
economic life which follows in the next chapter is a development
of the thesis advanced in the essay on "Economics and Ethics"
which we have already examined. Here, however, the emphasis is
on utility as a moment of activity, rather than as a property of
things. In the earlier essay Gentile contended that all action
was concretely moral, and that only terms within an action could
be called useful. But he also insisted that no thing could be
called useful except as a term within an action; while here on
the other hand he still argues that it is only in the realm of
material things, that economic values can be estimated. Hence
there is no real change of position involved.
It will be remembered that, in our first chapter, we
mentioned the Gentilian doctrine that the logo astratto, the
•facts', the material world, is an essential element in the logo
concreto, the total act of consciousness, the world of the spirit.
In this discussion he expounds the relation of economics and
ethics in terms of this distinction. But first he illustrates
the distinction in its most fundamental form—the relation of soul
and body, life, in his definition, is rooted in a 'feeling'
which is at once a sensitive activity (the soul) and an object
sensed (the body). Through our immediate sense of the body we
master it and make it obedient to our will: thus if we consider
the body in abstraction from the conscious activity of the soul
it is not human but subhuman. The same can be said of the whole
of Nature, the totality of all possible contents of the conscious
activity of the spirit; and within this totality, the whole realm
of economics falls. The 'economic1 egocentric will has an
instinctive character about it which makes it common ground
between man and the lower animals. According to Gentile the
intelligence which guides human economic action differs only in
degree from the cunning of the animals.4° rrjjje various economic
impulses constitute a negation of the will of the spirit: they
are as it were a will of the body. This corporeal will is
essential to the total dialectic of the spirit but it has no
independent actual existence. It is not logically prior to the
moral will, as Croce would have it, for it enters into actual
consciousness only as the non—being of the moral will. It is a
limit—an ideal entity whose actuality is constituted by the
moral will of which it is the limit. In the absolute sense of
the word therefore, economic action is not prior but posterior to
morality.
The ultimate conclusion is the same as in the earlier
discussion. Economics is an abstract science, dealing with the
world of Nature in which everything is what it is, because every-
thing is already all that it can be; the world of the past in
which everything is determinate. For this reason it is naturally
a science which aspires to the perfect logical determinacy of
mathematical form. Its theorems have an instrumental not a
normative character since man is not concretely an animal but a
living spirit. Hence the proverbial self-contradiction of
utilitarian morality in the dictum that "Honesty is the best
policy"—which implies that the true interest of the individual

'B.1288, pp. 72-73.

involves reference to a duty which is not definable in terms of
interest.
The State therefore, must consider this higher good that is
beyond the purview of abstract economics. It cannot concern
itself with the "subhuman life of man"47 except as material for
the creation of humanity. In this way 'economic' activities
assume a moral importance. The conquest of nature even when
undertaken for the sake of individual advantage has a universal
significance. Each individual gives way before the natural
power of death, but his work lives on to the universal benefit of
mankind.
The next two chapters (VIII and IX) sum up briefly the
relation between the State and Religion and the State and Culture.
Unlike economic goods Religion is not an instrumental value; the
politician who attempts to make use of it as an instrument of
policy is inevitably doomed to fail, since his religion is a
hollow sham in which he does not himself believe; and this empti-
ness will ultimately become apparent. Religion is the source of
that quality of 'absoluteness' which attaches to all the actions
of life that present themselves as duties. The State therefore
has an essentially religious character; as an ethical institution
it represents the absolute law of duty in an historically deter-
minate form. Without this sense of the State's law as an absolute
limit on his own will no man could give his allegiance to its
institutions or representatives: and without that allegiance the
whole structure of the State would be only an empty shell. We

47B.1288, p. 85.
might perhaps sum up the contrast between Religion and Economics
in Gentile's thought by saying that as moments in the life of the
State they are both 'limits': but the religious limit is an
'ideal' one, a moral limit and hence a spiritual reality; whereas
the economic limit is a 'real' one, a natural fact and hence a
spiritual nullity—an abstraction. Politics moves between these
limits and the whole process of life consists in the substitution
of the former for the latter.
Hence, politics—the State—coincides ideally with philo-
sophy—the critical consciousness of human culture. That is why
philosophers who claim to stand absolutely apart from political
life, as Spinoza or the Roman Stoics did, are inevitably suspect
in the eyes of the political authority.48 Both alike are essen-
tially concerned with the education of humanity. There is a
certain distinction, however, between the attitude of the philo-
sopher and that of the practical politician: "The philosopher
should be always the apostle of the ideal, never the patron or
defender of the realized fact."49 r^e philosopher's task,

4°B.1288, p. 94. The reference to Croce seems clear:

"Who does not know that in certain cases silence is more irri-
tating than any insult or injury?"
Against this critical 'superior' attitude, Gentile urges in
his own defence, that where a philosopher finds a political move-
ment that seems inspired by an ideal close to that of his own
philosophy, he should be at liberty to support it without being
accused of bad faith and intellectual prostitution. "Or are we
seriously to believe that Plato was moved by a private interest
when he wrote his letters to the king of Syracuse?" The irony of
this classic example appears to have escaped him: one would have
thought that Plato's relations with Syracuse were an eternal
object lesson of the dangers of a close association between
philosophers and politicians.
49
ibid., p. 98.
 360

relative to the State, is an essentially critical one: he is the

gadfly who should spur on the politicians of his party to progress
towards the ideals on which his eyes are fixed. But there is no
reason why his party should always be the opposition and never
the government. His criticism will have value, in any case, only
in so far as it becomes the self—criticism of the State authority.
Even when in opposition therefore, he should always recognize
the positive value of the actual policies that he opposes. We
ought not to forget, concludes Gentile, that the practical poli-
tician has his own philosophy and his own ideal of the State, and
that these are the really important things so far as he is
concerned. Philosophy is not something produced only in the
study.
At this point, Gentile returns to consider his earlier
remark that the State must have freedom in its external relations
if there is to be any freedom within its borders. The question
of the empirical plurality of States is analogous to that of the
plurality of individuals. Within the synthesis of self-conscious-
ness 'other' individuals are freely recognized, and thereby
unified with the subject who remains singular. To understand
these 'others' in their otherness we must put ourselves in their
shoes; and this cannot be done altogether. In the same way every
man has one patria, and others exist for him only in so far as
they are recognized; that is, so far as there is a unity of will
between his own, and these 'others'. The realization of this
unity is mirrored in systems of treaty-obligation and in the
growth of international law. But this unity can never be
complete:
 361

For if this tendency could be perfectly fulfilled

(in a confederation, a centralized empire, a society
of nations, etc.) this would be not the absolute
realization of the State but the end of it. For the
State—despite its namel—is in no way static. It is
a process. Its will is-a synthesis which resolves all
immediacy. If the State existed already—all fine
and finished—and the unique State was therefore
something immediately existent, a matter of fact, and
there was no further otherness to conquer, since the
dream of perpetual peace, the eternal heart's desire
of humanity fleeing from the horrors of war-had come
true, then the movement in which the life of the
State—which is the life of the Spirit itself—
becomes actual would come to a halt. And instead of
the very best State there would be the death of every
State.50
This is, I think, no more than a vulgar prejudice masquer-
ading as philosophy. There are no grounds in the theory of
Actual Idealism for a belief that inter-State war is essential to
the spiritual life: and the argument is only rendered plausible
by a misrepresentation of the situation that would exist if an
international order were established, and by a materialist inter-
pretation of the idealist theory of the State. It is not the
case that if a single World State were established all political
strife would cease. It is fundamental to the theory of the
ethical State that in its 'ethical' aspect, the State remains
always an ideal to be achieved. By Gentile's own admission,
Italy was not finally 'made' in 1870 or even in 1915 or 1922.
But to suppose that this ideal incompleteness of the existent
empirical State has anything to do with the existence of 'other1
empirical States is to imply that the main task of the State in
fulfilment of its ethical mission is territorial expansion and
the achievement of empire.

50B.1288, p. 103.
 One of the principal reasons why most people feel, and will
continue to feel, that the doctrine of the Ethical State, what-
ever elements of truth it may contain, is an inadequate account
of morality, lies here. Morality requires the establishment of
a system of law and mutual respect between nations, which can
never be made effective until ordinary citizens recognize a
higher loyalty than that which they owe to their particular
national communities. As long as war continues to be a legiti-
mate instrument of international policy it is impossible to agree
with Gentile that "the State" contains even its enemies; this
will not be true until all war is recognized as being essentially
civil war.
There is a serious imperfection here in Gentile's interpre-
tation of his own doctrine; for he recognizes quite clearly that
the ideal State, above and beyond the empirical multiplicity of
existent States, is identical with the totality of political
history so far as it concerns the citizen and his community.
World History, mediated through the thought of the individual
historian, is the history of the united moral enterprise of
humanity. As the concept of this enterprise 'the State1 involves
the ideals for which men have striven and. which will continue to
guide their efforts. It is never completely actual; there is
always a transcendent element involved in ethical life. This
element provides a sufficient ground for distinguishing the
divine from the human when we say that the State is divine, and
so provides a ready answer to the charge of 'Statolatry'.
Furthermore, because of this transcendent ideal element the life
of the State is a continuous revolution. Constitutions and laws
 363)

provide an essential element of structural permanence in what

would otherwise be a sheer flux: but even these are continually
evolving.

4» Politics and the "humanism of Labour".

The knowledge of one's political status, of being a citizen,
cannot be a merely theoretical conviction. It must be felt.
Politics has its root in the feelings and in the emotional life
of man. The child is almost by instinct a citizen in his own
tiny commonwealth—which includes his family and his playfellows.
The artist forms a sort of society with his own creations, which
have a nature of their own that calls forth his respect and
sympathy, even though they represent tendencies that he wishes to
see abolished.2l His creations would have no life if he remained
coldly aloof from them. The scientist and philosopher form a
society—completely internal but nonetheless a real society—with
their own thoughts and with the past history of their problems.
even in the most intense meditation man is never alone;
and in the society through which he gradually expresses
his thinking activity, he moves always from a non-actual
unity towards the actual realization of another higher
unity that is alone effective, by way of opposition and
struggle. It should be noted carefully that this
struggle does not always develop in a hostile fashion
as a strife of adverse individualities desirous to
annihilate one another. Indeed, properly speaking, there
is never this desire: since if the other were annihi-
lated it would no longer be the other which the subject
needs, to bear witness to its own universality, being
reunited with it in the self-consciousness that creates

51AS usual Gentile's example is drawn from Manzoni's

Promessi Sposi; he is careful to emphasize, however, that not
only fietional persons but also material objects can have an
individuality in the eyes of the artist.
 the other as an opposite precisely in order to realize
itself as a unity of the opposite terms.52
Even in man's relation with God Gentile finds an immanent
politics. In Actual Idealism Religion is the moment of self-
alienation in which the subject feels its own nothingness in the
face of a mystical Reality which is totally objective. The
essence of Religion on this view is symbolized in the posture of
prayer. But even the mystic is not forever on his knees; he
rises to proclaim his vision and to become, however inadequately,
the mouthpiece of God. From this humanization of God springs the
Church as an abiding order which represents His will. The soli-
tude of the hermit is an impossible ideal; once the possibility
of Man's speaking with God and for God is granted, a religious
society becomes essential—no man's judgement in religion or any-
thing else is really 'private'. If it were, man's zeal to spread
the faith would be incomprehensible. 'Truth v/ill out'; for all
thought is essentially universal in import.53
It is quite impossible, therefore, for any man to escape the
responsibility involved in his membership of society. His ethics
is bound to be social: it is bound to have political roots and
political implications. For if his community is an essential
element in his own personality there can be no distinction of his

52B.1288, pp. 130-131.

23Hence the intolerance native to all religions. To be
certain of the truth is to be unable to admit any disagreement.
Where the truth is acquired by grace, those who know it not have
no right to live in the eyes of those who are elect. The answer
to this dogmatism is not the scepticism of chacun a son gout.
It is not because there is no answer to Pilate's question that
intolerance is wrong; but rather because the truth cannot be
formulated once and for all (B.1288, pp. 134-136).
 365

own private affairs from the sphere of public policy and the
public good. Those who have tried to set limits to the State in
its relations with the 'private' citizen have simply ignored the
fact that any limitations they may advocate can only be advocated
legitimately as matters of public policy, and only have effective
reality through a decision taken in the public interest, that is,
a decision of the State—which thus asserts its sovereignty even
beyond the limits it assigns.54
The totalitarian State was therefore, according to Gentile,
the explicit recognition of the essentially political character
of morality. It might seem to involve the swallowing of the
individual in the State; but from another point of view it
involved the reverse process of the individual swallowing the
State. It was an ideal whose full realization would involve the
active acceptance of political responsibility by every citizen
in all aspects of his life.
The 'right' of the citizen is his right only because it is
first of all his duty. Everyone recognizes, of course, that his
right is something which others have a duty to respect: what we
have to remember is that, at bottom, this distinction is the

54B.1288, pp. 119-121. This argument is ambiguous. When-

ever use is made of it in practice, any cogency that it may seem
to possess arises from a purely terminological disagreement.
Gentile cites for instance the Catholic defence of private
initiative in education. But any Catholic less bigoted in his
attachment to a particular form of words than Gentile himself,
could easily answer that he was far from denying the paramount
importance, in all matters, of the common
1
good of humanity. If
Gentile chose to call that 'the State , he was at liberty to do
so., Only let him understand that in the Catholic view, the
interests of 'the State' required that 'the Government'—quite a
different thing—should leave certain schools alone.
 36&

distinction of 'self and 'other' in the individual consciousness;.

If the child has a right to be educated the father has a duty to
educate him: and the root of this reciprocal relation lies in
the sense of community between them, through which they are not
two but one. Right and duty are always similarly correlative.
The right to take part in politics belongs to every man because
every man has the fundamental duties of a citizen.
The ideal of democracy, as Gentile says, has always been to
educate the individual citizen in the sense of his responsibility
as the conscious focus of the total process of World History;
whereas absolutism always stood for the reservation of political
power and responsibility in the hands of a minority. According
to this definition Gentile considers himself a democrat; but
he does not agree that democracy is properly synonymous with a
certain system of institutions:
. . . the difficulty lies in the system of that
education. Parties and parliaments are abstract forms
that derive their efficacy from custom, which can
favour and promote, but not create. And they will
miseducate the people out of every real and sane
interest in the public good, as long as they remain
artificial forms, corresponding to merely conventional
principles, rather than to the tendencies and needs
of individuals, according to their effective interests.
This was the aim of the recent Italian political
movement; its constitutional experiments although
vitiated in their provisory forms of application by
the transitory necessities of the political situation
(internal and external), cannot go to waste, for they
answer to that need of a more organic representation
that had come to be felt for half a century previously
even in the most enlightened current of conservative
liberalism.55
Thus the Fascist Corporate State represented, in his view,

55B.1288, pp. 110-111.

a closer approach to the democratic ideal than did liberal
parliamentary institutions, which belonged essentially to a past
era in which political rights were the prerogative of a minority
who had been educated in the humanism of the classical tradition.
He held that education for citizenship was no longer conceivable
simply in terms of this tradition:
To the humanism of culture, which was indeed a
glorious step in the liberation of man, there succeeds
today or will succeed tomorrow the humanism of labour.
For the creation of great industry and the advance of
the worker onto the great stage of history, has pro-
foundly modified the modern conception of culture.
The word used to mean intellectual culture, and
especially art and literature; it left out that vast
section of humanity which does not look towards the
free horizon of the higher culture, but v/orks at the
foundations of human culture, where man is in contact
with nature, and works.56
All work, physical as well as intellectual, is a conquest of
otherness; a spiritualization of something material. Thus work
is what makes man truly human, for through it he creates a world
of his own instead of simply drifting. The notion of 'culture'
must be extended to cover all activity which is thus creative of
humanity: and there must be general recognition that labour is
the only passport to active citizenship. The modern State must
be a Worker's State.
And, just as in his theory of culture in the more ordinary
academic sense Gentile wished to see pupils organized in schools
each of which was dominated by a single aim, so in his opinion,
this new and wider ideal of culture must be articulated through
the organization of workers in categories which correspond to

56B.1288, p. Ill; Gentile's italics.

 368

their aims. Since this articulation, is to be the expression of

the concrete interests of individual citizens, the State must
respect the family, which is the focus of a man's work, the
objective representation of his immortality; and it must respect
the principle of inheritance through which the abiding unity of
the family is preserved. Then, secondly, it must respect the
different worlds in which men live beyond the boundary of the
family, in their daily work. Thus the citizen is to be defined
as the member of a family who works in a definite environment.
If he is to feel the responsibilities of a citizen he must be
able to recognize that his real interests, as defined by this
environment, receive due consideration. This, according to
Gentile, was the ideal of the Corporate State.
Professor Spirito finds the root of Gentile's 'humanism, of
labour' in his early studies of Marx.57 Certainly the Marxian
dialectic of man and his environment interpreted as being essen-
tially an educational process was very influential in forming
Gentile's own interpretation of human labour as a progressive
spiritualization of Nature—his boasted concezione umanistica del
mondo; and Gentile himself speaks of the important part played by
the socialists in the transformation of the traditional idea of

57vita _e pensiero, Vol. I, pp. 331-333. Cf. above,

Chapter TIT, p. 77. T5 seems quite possible that his rereading
of the early essays on Marxism in 1937 did influence his thought
in his last work.
As long as the Fascist Party was in power it was an article
of faith that the Marxists were damned, and a public duty to
attack Bolshevism on every conceivable occasion. One cannot but
feel grateful for the brief period of suspense in which Gentile's
last work was written. Being definitely out of public life, he•
was able, briefly, to recapture a certain measure of objectivity
in his analysis of political life.
 369
eg
culture.J But the recognition of this transformation is some-
thing new in his thought.
In discussing the ideal of culture in Gentile's educational
writings we remarked that although he seemed to feel that, being
personal, culture ought to be a total conception of life, his own
conception was essentially limited to what is vulgarly called
'book learning'. The speculative basis for this limitation was
provided in a speech made at the opening of a 'School of Social
Culture' for the working men of Rome in January 1922.59 The
speech was entitled "Labour and Culture", and Gentile's main
concern was to distinguish manual labour, directed towards
material economic goods, from thought which is directed to the
universal values of the spirit. The assimilation of manual to
intellectual labour seemed to Gentile at that time, to rest on a
dangerous equivocation. It was true that labour was the only
source of value; and that in subjecting Nature to his will, man
gave to it a human quality and hence a universal spiritual value.
But for all that, Nature remained always obstinately material; and
the continual effort to conquer this materiality involved a sort
of abasement of the spirit. In part Nature was assimilated to
man; but the price was a partial assimilation of man to Nature:
Hence by means of manual work, man assimilates him-
self to nature. The man who works is always in a way
the slave of the soil; he resolves his own work, which
is always human energy, into something physically and
materially there: he plants the work of his hands in
a determinate spot on the earth, from which it cannot

58B.1288, p. 112.

59B.658 in B.937, pp. 16-37.

 370

be separated. And he himself remains always chained

to it as to his own life. Human labour penetrates
into nature, so to speak, and founds itself upon it;
it is grafted onto it so as to prolong in a certain
sense its own course, its own process. For certainly,
nature unworked is very different from nature as it
changes little by little and becomes transformed and
transfigured through human efforts; but as this trans-
formation produced by human labour gradually takes
place, it absorbs all the labour into itself, assimi-
lates it, and in the common phrase, stores' it up, so
that man disappears and nature remains; man as an
individual, as worker, vanishes, and nature is left,
transformed and different, but always nature.60
Manual labour, and everything connected with it, the whole
search after riches, binds man to his own lesser particular self.
It is a heaping up of treasure on earth. Therefore Gentile
expressed the hope that the Administration of the new school
will be led by the essence and the logic of the culture
that the workers need, to broaden its scope, so as to
include in addition to those kinds of knowledge that
are useful for the purposes of labour and its economic
and legal organization, and necessary for the under-
standing of the world in which the worker operates,
that higher disinterested culture, which is the true
culture, which makes man really human Cfa uomo l'uomol
in the universality of his interests, th"e" value of
his ideals, the liberty of his intellect open to all
the voices of the human heart . . .61
For, the labourer is first of all a man, a creature who must
understand his human heritage in order to realize his duties and
responsibilities as a man. This is a knowledge no one can leave
to others, since morally we must all act as "whole men and not
specialists".
The change in Gentile's attitude and the broadening of his
outlook came about mainly through his interest in the theory

B.658 in B.937, PP. 26-27-

ibid., pp. 34-35.
 371

behind the constitutional innovations of the Fascist Regime. We

have remarked on the similarity between his view of the Corporate
State, and the 'organic' principle that dominated his reform of
the secondary schools, and I think that it was this analogy that
made him take manual labour more seriously as an educational
process productive of real culture. There can be no question
that this development was a great advance; it supplies in itself
a sufficient critique of such shorthand characterizations of
Actual Idealism as that of Br. Minio-Paluello who describes it as
2
"an exalted intellectualism". There is no question that in
Gentile's personal experience as a professor and teacher "exalted
intellectualism" is precisely what it was. But it was meant to
be a working philosophy of life; and as such it has possibilities
of application in realms where any ordinary rationalism or
intellectualism would have no meaning. In breaking the barrier,
which out of a sense of intellectual superiority he had erected
in 1922 between the ordinary working man and the scholar or the
artist, Gentile recognized this.
He certainly did not wish, however, to abandon his earlier
argument altogether. All his life he held that no man was worthy
of the name who renounced all interest in the problems of life and
death, and all concern for the universal human values of art,
religion and philosophy. Unfortunately, it is as hard to see how
a sense of the universal problems and values of humanity could be
preserved in a social system in which the political activity of

"^Education in Fascist Italy, p. 71. It is only fair to add

that he does qualify this judgement as true "in one sense".
 372

the individual was legally confined to the sphere of his own

particular economic interest, as it was to understand how the
spirit of spontaneity which is the heart of Gentile's educational
theory, could ever flourish in an educational system as rigid as
that which he envisaged. While I do not for a moment admit the
justice of Gentile's strictures against liberal parliamentary
institutions, it is undeniable that "the advance of the labourer
onto the great stage of history" has posed a new problem in
political theory; and certainly the organization of the mass of
the people in great corporate bodies is a phenomenon that it
would be foolish to ignore. But when these bodies are employed
directly as organs of the State, the State becomes simply the
moment of authority against which the individual feels himself
driven to rebel. It seems to me, therefore, that a Corporate
State becomes a dictatorship out of necessity, on pain of ceasing
to be a State altogether; and hence I cannot admit the validity
of Gentile's claim that corporate institutions represent a more
concrete realization of liberty and a higher form of democracy.
The 'necessity' which 'vitiated' the 'constitutional experiments'
of Fascism was not 'transitory'. It was involved in the philo-
sophy behind the experiments—or in Gentile's own terminology it
was 'eternal'. Here as in the educational field we can profit
from Gentile's speculations only by neglecting his practical
programme—even though in this case it was the practical programme
that generated the theory.
 373

5. Life and Peath.

Gentile always insisted that all philosophy should be
directed towards the ultimate problems of conscious existence.63
It is very fitting therefore that his last v/ork should conclude
as it does with a meditation on "The Transcendental Society,
Death and Immortality" (Chapter XIII). He felt that men turn to
religion because they find in it a definite solution of the
problem of life and death which all of us have to face:
It is not religion that is the principle of which the
dogma of immortality is the corollary; it is the need
to be able to rely on immortal life that makes us seek
religion as the pillow on which to rest our weary
heads at the end of the day of toil.64
The motive of this interest, is not a desire to see God's justice
fulfilled but rather a yearning towards complete happiness—a
happiness that will last.
The existence that men desire to continue is a social life
with their family and friends. The people most closely concerned
in our lives are so much a part of us that we never expect their
death any more than our own. It comes as a rude interruption in
the pattern of things, which can only be restored by anticipation
of a future in which there are no such irrational interruptions.
This anticipation follows logically, in a sense, since man "lives
in tomorrow."5 THe past is irrevocably lost but the future is
an abiding possession in v/hich all men, even the pessimist, con-
fide—for even the pessimist looks to the future to vindicate him.

6
3cf. B.1250, pp. 252-260.
64
B.1288, p. 139.
g
5ibid., p. 141.
 374

But how can this eudaemonism be made consistent with the

mystical moment of self—denial in religion? Through the doctrine
of man's redemption from sin and reconciliation with God. Even
the sinner with all his personal weaknesses can picture himself
as travelling on this road. On this pretext the high contem-
plation of the ascetic is transformed into the more worldly
prayers of the ordinary man—or the woman who prays for the
preservation even of the family pets. Christianity at its best
is an almost philosophical doctrine of the suffering and death
of the lower personality (the flesh) in order that the higher
(the spirit) may attain eternal life. It is true that even
here we find the notion of a resurrection of the body;"6 DUt; a t

least there is a clear recognition that it is the divine element

in man that is to be saved—he must surrender his worldly goods
and interests.
Sin, however, is also eternal. Hence Hell, the realm of
immortal death. Hell represents a logical working out of the
theory that gives to evil a positive instead of a privative and
dialectical character. Immortality has become a natural property
belonging to a 'thing' called the 'soul' or the 'spirit'. The
privative theory of evil which is native to the Christian
tradition should lead rather to the recognition that sin is
immortal as the servitude which the spirit conquers and escapes.

DD
The error of such a belief, says Gentile, lies more in the
concept of the body that is to made immortal than in the belief in
its immortality. The body which is truly immortal is the body
that forms an essential moment of the Spirit, the universal object
which is the content of all feeling. Considered thus it is freed
from all particularity and spatiality.
 375

But in fact, the whole notion of immortality, whether in

popular desire or in the religious visions of reality, is vitiated
by an illicit connection of eternity with time. It is perpetuity
that we are concerned to guarantee for ourselves; and this is
impossible. More than that, it does not really satisfy the
spiritual needs of man. Perpetuity is a bastard idea—an indefi-
nite, not an infinite concept. The eternity that really matters
is the eternity of truth; and this is not something that depends
on its temporal endurance in the memory. Nothing can destroy the
value of a thought even when it is completely forgotten. This is
the eternity of the act of consciousness for which there is no
'before' or 'after'. The eternal act is a living moment which
may embrace only a single word or contain the whole history of a
nation.67 It is always a spontaneous creation, always unique,
and does not endure through time. Time comes to birth only
within the eternal present; and the human longing for immortality
in the popular sense is simply a shadow cast by the spirit's
struggle to realize itself and attain to the truth which is1
eternal.
Belief in the immortality of a substance is a delusion: so
also is belief in personal immortality as long as the idea of
personality is infected with the heresy of individualism. Did
not Jesus say that he who would save his soul shall lose it?68

67in general all of Gentile's examples of the eternity of

the act are drawn from the world of art—especially poetry (cf.
B.889 in B.1075, p. 269). In this chapter he offers several
examples and finally settles on "the poetic world of Ariosto"
(B.1288, p. 153).
68
B.1288, p. 156.
 376

The personal immortality of popular belief, "which may be called

the democratic idea of immortality is the most anti-religious,
the most immoral and most illogical illusion in which men cradle
themselves, in their longing for immortality and their yearning
after it as a comfort for life."69 The kingdom of Heaven is not
something that exists already perfect elsewhere; it is the future
which is our responsibility. Certainly it is 'not of this
world'—but yet it is 'within'.
The conclusion to which this discussion leads us is that
life and death are not things or events that can be separated.
Beath is a moment of life. We reverence the dead because with
them a part of us dies; and the fear of death arises from this
sense of an abyss in our own being. The fear of this ultimate
nothingness is the root of all the arguments of pessimism. But
it can have a real value, in that it should bring home to us the
fact that we are not sufficient unto ourselves and, conversely,
that our personal existence does not belong to us alone.
Actually, we have no concrete (direct) knowledge of death.
The 'other' v/ithin us who dies, survives in memory. Here is the
reality of immortality, in the feeling of inward presence, that
common sense regards as illusory; whereas the immortality of
common sense and popular belief is the illusion. We have to
recognize that this subjective life in which the 'other' does not
die, is "the real principle and the solid and absolute foundation
of the world itself".70 At first everything presents itself to

69B.1288, p. 158.
701^16:., p. 165.
 377

consciousness as foreign. The search for immortality is an

attempt to find in this foreign world of objective nature the
reality that belongs to the subject itself. To recognize this
truth is not to commit the sin of Lucifer, but to accept moral
responsibility. For responsibility implies freedom; and freedom
cannot be limited.
But how then are we to explain the fact of sleep in which
this subjective consciousness is interrupted and broken off?
Sleep provides an awkward problem for a philosophy that takes
its stand on consciousness^ Gentile is unguarded enough to
approach it almost empirically. He produces what looks like a
piece of 'probable' reasoning in defence of an a priori position,
arguing that we dream all the time, but remember some dreams
more vividly than others. It seems to me that, rather than make
this assumption which can never be more than an assumption, he
ought to remain firmly in the eternal present and content himself
v/ith saying that a sleep of which we remember nothing is not part
of experience. It is, like death, a sheer limit at which the
a priori synthesis of self and other is dissolved.
Beath is the dissolution of the transcendental society. It
is a point which we perceive from afar but never reach. In its
actuality, death is a social fact. There would be no meaning in
death for an absolutely solitary being. He cannot die; for to die
is to become nothing for others. Man dies a 'civil' or moral
death when he becomes a social outcast, no longer a human being,
but a mere dead object, in the eyes of his neighbours. In the
gradual approach of death through paralysis—which brings the
individual as near that ideal limit as it is possible to come—
 378

this is what happens to the body. But since the body is an

essential partner in the transcendental society, the society
itself, for which alone death would have a meaning, is at the
last annihilated. And hence death is not, and never can be, an
experience.

6. Aftermath: The Fascist Social Republic.

In late August or September Gentile came from the country
to Florence where he showed the manuscript of The Genesis and
Structure of Society to a friend who was opposed to Fascism, and
told him, "Your friends can shoot me now if they want to. My
life work is finished"; at this the friend was naturally
horrified and expostulated with him, saying that of course no
one wished such a thing.^1 His friend's horror was quite
sincere. But nonetheless it is at least certain that at this
time there was no one possessed of any sort of authority who
wished Gentile any good.
The Armistice was announced on September 8th while Gentile
was visiting Rome; this was a terrible blow to a man whose
loyalty to the Nation had always been inseparable from his
respect for the Monarchy as symbolic of the national tradition.
The national honour seemed to him to require the continuation of
war to the last: hence there was no word except 'betrayal' that

'•LMario M. Rossi in the Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (1950),

p. 217. Dr. Rossi says that this encounter took place at the
beginning of August; but this must be a slip for we have the
testimony of Gentile's son and his publishers that the book was
written in August and completed in the first days of September.
(Cf. Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 29 for a letter written on
August 20 in which Gentile remarks: "I am writing a book, which
gives me much satisfaction." Cf. also B.1288 Avvertenza, fn.).
 379

could c h a r a c t e r i z e the a c t i o n of the King's Government. Gentile

returned to Troghi, resolved to stand aside from public life;
and in October he moved to Florence for the winter (rather than
return to Rome). The Fascist extremists had joined in the
attacks on him immediately after the Armistice. He complained
sadly to Biggini who was a minister in Mussolini's last cabinet:
and again to the (Fascist) Prefect of Florence—and on account of
these attacks he refused to accept even a reappointment to the
Directorship of the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa from the
Fascist Social Republic.
But in November there came a request from Biggini that
Gentile should consent to a personal interview with Mussolini.
This he felt he could not refuse, and as a result he was led to
accept the Presidency of the revived Accademia d'Italia. As he
explained it in a letter to his daughter;
Some time ago a friend who is a Minister came here to
seek me, and I told him frankly the personal and poli-
tical reasons for which I desired to remain in retire-
ment tin dispartel. But he assured me that of course
I could remain in retirement; only I ought to visit my
old friend who desired to see me and was distressed
about certain recent manifestations of hostility to
my person. To deny this visit was impossible. . . .
On the 17th I had a conversation lasting almost two
hours that was very moving. I spoke my whole mind,
and made many observations, of which I begin to see
some salutary effects. I think that I did much good
for the country. He asked nothing of me and he offered
me nothing. The conversation was between the two of us
alone. The nomination was arranged afterwards with my
friend the Minister; and brought to me here by a
Director General. Not to accept it would have been a
supreme act of cowardice and the demolition of my whole
life. Enrico well knows that on June 23rd-24th I did
not give way before threats of death. And then too I
profoundly desire that we should win; that Italy should
arise again with her honour;, that my own Sicily should
be at my death that supremely Italian island [la
Sicilia italianissima} in which I was born and in which
 my parents are buried. To wait shut up in one*'©
house, until events grow ripe, is the surest way to
compromise them. One must go forward according to
one's conscience. This I have preached all my life.
I cannot give myself the lie now I am on the verge
of the end Csto per finirel. God will aid us. . . .72.
This letter provides in itself a sufficient explanation for his
activity in the four and a half months that remained before his
death. His reply to the Puce accepting the appointment is full
of expressions of personal loyalty and trust. But he ventured
one word of advice that sums up his whole policy in that period
and gives some idea of the "good" that he believed he could do
for his country:
. . . I am certain that you will want to proceed
frankly to use the authority that you have to lead
the Republic to a stable settlement and towards a
pacification of hearts Cpacificazione degli animil.73
In this period, one of his sons had been deported by the
Germans to Poland and another was already on his death bed
(though he survived his father by three months). Only in his new
task, labouring always for the "pacification of hearts" (at least
in Italy) did Gentile find any peace or comfort. He wrote an
article for the Corriere della Sera at the end of December
pleading for moderation. The rejection of the Armistice seemed
to him to have been essential, though he spoke with regret of the
Monarchy "in whose shade the Italians were born and thought to
die. "74" The Fascists had therefore obeyed the call of duty: but

72yita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 39—40. (There is a photo-

graphic facsimile of this letter between pages 32 and 33).
73ibid., p. 41.
74B.1274, reprinted in Vita e pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 85.
 381

they should exercise the power they had seized "in a broad-minded
spirit of pacification and construction". They should not sacri-
fice the interest of the Nation to the demands of vengeance and
abstract justice. The Nation was something above the disagree-
ments of factions.
In January 1944 he became editor of La Nuova Antologia.
In his acceptance of the post he made certain stipulations. His
task, as he saw it, was the pacification and reorganization of
Italian culture, and he proposed to "set aside the political
discussions which today divide unduly the Italian people.." He
insisted, therefore, that he must be free to choose non-Fascist
collaborators provided that they were thoroughly loyal to the
Nation.75 in the first issue under his editorship he set forth
his aims in terms which recall the closing paragraphs of his
lecture on "The Philosophy of the War" in 1914. The "infinite
disaster of today" was not the invasion and the material devas-
tation but the internal discord, which made Italians unable to
recognize or understand themselves. In the universal values of
culture all parties might find a firm basis of agreement.
Not that I am still under the delusion that there can
be an indifferent culture that does not involve poli-
tical tendencies or contain echoes of the practical
personality. But I know that to things of beauty all
men turn their eyes with a joy and admiration that
makes them brothers . . . All culture is like language,
which is always individual and so acquires a personal
stamp in every writer, but is yet the ideal chain by
which men are linked together and form one single
humanity. It is good to appeal to this culture as an
instrument for the fusion of spirits when the moral
unity of men is broken and seems to dissolve.76

75yjta e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 44.

76
B.1282; Vita e pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 92-93.
 38-2

He did not flatter himself that the "miracle whereby Italians

would recover Italy" could be brought about by this means alone.
But he trusted that at least "the desire and hope for such a
miracle" might be aroused.

But although he pleaded for a moderate, conciliatory

attitude towards those who were not positively and actively
opposed to the Fascist Social Republic he did not hide his con-
tempt for the fence—sitters who simply waited on events. He was
certain that no one could stand aside with an easy conscience.
To wait? That is the part of the lazy, the
egoists, the cowards: but not without an internal
gnawing dissatisfaction and a suspicion that waiting
is a betrayal. A betrayal of one's Country, that
is, ultimately of oneself . . .77

For himself, his position was taken: and he reaffirmed his

loyalty in a speech at the bicentennial celebrations of the
death of Vico in M a r c h — a speech which was, possibly, not

unconnected with the decision to assassinate him. He poured

scorn on the 'liberators' and claimed that only Mussolini's

voice had given back to the Nation a real consciousness of itself

at a time when it was "as if the dishonour of a gesture had
cancelled twenty-five centuries of history brilliant with genius,
virtue, labour and endurance."78 Even the German intervention he

welcomed:

The resurrection of Mussolini was necessary like every

event that enters into the logic of history. The
intervention of Germany was logical, though the
traitors had disowned her, because quos Beus vult

77B.1285; Vita e pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 97.

7°»L'Accademia d'Italia e 1' Italia di Mussolini" in Vita e_

pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 101.
 383

perdere dementat C "those God wishes to des.troy he makes

mad}; but her loyalty and power and audacity were
always recognized and held in mind by the Italy of
Mussolini. And so that Italy was suddenly found
again through Mussolini, and aided in her resurgence
by the Captain CQondottierol of the great Germany
that Mussolini's Italy looked for at her side, which
was her post for her own honour and destiny, sharing
in the formidable battle to save Europe and western
civilization for her people brave, tenacious and
invincible.79
And sadly but resolutely he surrendered his faith in the Monarchy:
. . . we have no longer the heart to seek out our
King in that shadowy no-man's-land between the
imprecations of a people betrayed and the ironic
smiles or the haughty disdain of the foreigner;—our
King, who was of old at the highest peak of our
thoughts, because in our eyes he symbolized in his
person our Country, which we would never have
suspected that he_ could have handed over to the
enemy.°°
The extreme political intransigence of this speech—made on
an essentially 'cultural' and academic occasion—was designed to
silence the extremists among the Fascist Republicans who still
continued to attack him, finding in his policy of moderation
and pacification"-1- evidence that he was politically untrust-
worthy. °2 It did not silence his Fascist critics; but it did
arouse new ones among the anti-Fascists. The foreign service of
the British Broadcasting Corporation made some very caustic

79"L'Accademia d'Italia e 1'Italia di Mussolini" in Vita e_

p_ensiero, Vol. IV, p. 102.
QOibid., p. 103.
"^He advocated this policy of rising above factional
differences even on this occasion. His eulogy of Vico ends thus.:
"From Vico the Italians will always learn to disdain factions"
(B.1283 in Vita e pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 119).
82cf. Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p . 52 ( l e t t e r from Gentile
to his son, Benedetto).
 384-

comments on this speech; and concluded:

. . . this alone, the great suffering of a people is
the monitory force of the present hour, the true voice
of Italy in mourning and in arms. And the rest, all
the,rest, is silence.°3
Benedetto Gentile finds in this broadcast a "clear
invitation to violence" and connects it with strong rumours that
British liaison officers aided and abetted the Communist Resis-
tance movement in Tuscany in planning the assassination. What-
ever may be the truth in that matter—and it seems certain that
it will never be known—it is surely unfair to see in this broad-
cast more than an entirely natural rejoinder. 4 Considering the
situation that existed in Italy, the patriotism of a sincere
supporter of either Government—or of neither—was bound to
appear nothing but a horrible blasphemy to his opponents, and any
reference to ideals on one side was sure to be answered by an
appeal to the facts on the other.
After this expression of his loyalty Gentile made only one
more public utterance. This was an article published in Civilta
Fascista a few days before his death entitled "The Sophism of the
Prudent", In it he returns to the argument of his earlier
article "The Moral Problem": the 'prudent' people are those who
sit on the fence waiting on events. It may be that they are
sincerely in doubt and desire at least not to make matters v/orse.

°3Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 55.

°4jt deserves to be remembered that all of Gentile's
references to the British in this period are quite exceptionally
violent (cf. especially B.1265 in Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV,
p. 78). -There is not much of the moderation of 1914 in his
atti-tude to the foreign enemy in 1943.
But they must come to terms with the reality of the situation.
At a moment of moral crisis those who insist that they need time
for further reflection and examination of the situation are
thieves living a stolen life and refusing the responsibilities
involved in their own continued existence. But they cannot
escape the moral responsibility for whatever happens. It is
impossible to be a mere spectator:
Is it not evident that the spectator as such remains
always an element of the reality he observes?
He will be a dead weight: but precisely as such, he
will weigh on the constitution of that reality which
he says he wants to take account of. He will like-
wise be a part of that society in which he is not a
combatant but a deserter, and as such responsible for
the events which his society encounters. For society
is never anything that can be represented objectively,
like a spectacle which the individual opposes to
himself so as to observe it, and remains alien to it
with his own powers of action and hence with his own
direction determined by these powers. Society is what
we make it: and we are always actors and never
spectators.°5
This is the essential text of the chapter on "Politics" in the
Genesis and Structure of Society. It is the fundamental doctrine
of Gentile's political thought and action, and can be traced back
explicitly to the article on "Politics and Philosophy" of 1918.
In that article it is directly derived from Gentile's vision of
the whole history of philosophy as the gradual assertion of
'spiritual' realism—the Christian, creative viev/ of the world—
against 'intellectual' realism—the classical, contemplative
attitude. Thus it expresses the very essence of Actual Idealism—
the union of theory and practice in the act of 'self-creation'.
The real significance of the paradox of autoctisi, which seems so

85
B.1284 in Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 125.
outrageously contrary to experience, lies simply in the duty of
a conscious being to accept moral responsibility for the whole
world of which he is conscious—a doctrine that seems to me to
be the heart of Christian ethics. This brief article forms
therefore a fitting close to Gentile's career as a philosopher.
And he lived his philosophy. On the very morning of his
death he went to intercede with the local authorities on behalf
of certain persons who had been arrested as politically suspect;
he was on his way home from this errand, and in fact his car had
stopped at the gateway of the villa in which he was living—which
stood in a park on the outskirts of Florence—when he was
approached by two complete strangers, one of whom inquired
whether he was Giovanni Gentile. On receiving an affirmative
reply they shot him and then escaped on bicycles, together with
two other men who were covering the action. Gentile must have
died instantly as one of the bullets pierced his heart.
The assassination was publicly deplored by the moderate
wing of the Partisan movement, and a strong rumour spread that
not the Partisans but the Fascist extremists were responsible for
it. The suggested reason was a proposed visit of Gentile to
Mussolini in order to plead for the adoption of a more pacific
and moderate policy. ° The rumour was quashed, however, by the
open admission of the Communists that they were responsible for
what they described as "one of the boldest and most risky

uo
He did have occasion for such a visit in order to discuss
the official business of the Academy. That he would have used
such a fair opportunity to make some such plea can hardly be
doubted.
 387

undertakings of anti-Fascist youth."87 £he Fascist authorities

imprisoned three well known anti-Fascist professors by way of
reprisal; but the Gentile family, rightly judging that there could
be no honour to the dead man in an abandonment of his policy,
interceded and obtained their release.""
For more than two months the body remained unburied while
the Government deliberated on a proposal to inter it in Santa
Croce. Eventually the sons appealed to Mussolini, and he inter-
vened with a personal order to the provincial authorities. The
decision to lay Gentile's bones near those of Michelangelo,
Machiavelli and so many other great Italians is perhaps one action
of the dictator for which Italy need not feel ashamed.

"'•Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 55.

88
Rossi, Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (1950), p. 218.
Cf. Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 60.
 CHAPTER IX

THE REAL AND THE IDEAL

1. Amicus Plato sed magis arnica Veritas.

Thus far this study has been in the main a contribution to
the history of philosophy rather than a contribution to philo-
sophy. In this chapter we shall no longer be concerned primarily
with the views of Gentile himself, but with the value of his
theories in the solution of present problems. The title of this
first section is meant to express the relation between the
present chapter and the preceding discussion. But since the
saying is all too often misunderstood and misused a few words of
explanation may not be out of place.
The dividing line between the history of philosophical
ideas, and the criticism which constitutes a nev/ philosophical
activity, is not a hard and fast one; indeed it is very doubtful
whether it can be drawn at all, and perhaps it does not even
exist. Hence the title of this section is not meant to imply
that we shall now abandon the role of apolog;ist for that of
critic. The attentive reader will be aware that we have never
really assumed the apologist's mantle: while doing our best to
understand, we have not hesitated to criticize wherever criticism
seemed called for. Such criticism is an essential moment of the
process of understanding. The point of the famous tag does not
in fact lie in the magis arnica Veritas which has always attracted
attention, so much as in the neglected premiss amicus Plato.
Only a critic who can honestly claim to have studied his subject
with a maximum of sympathy, can legitimately adopt Aristotle's
 389

excuse for his criticism. In short only a critic who can find
the 'truth' in 'Plato' has any right to prefer it to him.
This chapter, then, will be devoted to developing the
truth that is in Gentile's theories and freeing it from the
errors and dangers that we have noted here and there throughout
the previous eight chapters. But to do this with complete ade-
quacy would involve rewriting the whole of Gentile's philosophy:
and this is obviously impossible. All that I can hope to do is
to indicate a general trend of criticism and interpretation which
I believe will be of value to any man of good will who reads
Gentile's writings.
This sort of approach is the only fruitful one in dealing
with Actual Idealism. Gentile's philosophy is very like a
religious faith in that, unless one accepts it, one cannot hope
to understand it; and that is why although it has aroused hosts
of critics they have in general contributed but little to its
development. Occasionally, someone has succeeded in under-
standing it theoretically, without accepting it: the condition
of such a critic is then more parlous than that of his colleagues
whose efforts at understanding are less fortunate. For he is
reduced to making fun of it—he can offer nothing that is of any
positive value. The misunderstandings of Father Chiocchetti, for
instance, are worth far more to the student of Actual Idealism
than the complacent irony of Professor Boas.l

icf. Journal of Philosophy, XXXIII (1926), pp. 184-188.

It should be added that the argument of this paragraph cuts both
ways. Thus Gentile's criticisms of Kant and post-Kantian
idealism are of much greater value than his criticisms of the
Graeco-Christian tradition or of modern empiricism.
 390

2. Idealism and Positivisms.

In the first section of Chapter II we mentioned Holmes'
conclusion that "what Gentile should endeavour to stress is the
thinking and not the personality for it is the thinking that is
essential to his doctrine":z we should now be in a position to
decide whether or not this is true. It seems to me to be clear
that Holmes' criticism of the Gentilian Ego rests on a mistake:
but it must be admitted that his mistake is not a simple one to
analyse. He has not overlooked Gentile's argument that a
'person' is by not being; and he is quite well aware that
Gentile's 'person' is not a presupposition: but he feels that
the word does imply a substantial existence which is foreign to
the basic tenets of Actual Idealism. His basic complaint is
expressed thus:
The use of the Ego to initiate the dialectic leads
necessarily to one of tv/o insuperable difficulties.
Either one starts with an Ego which is presupposed
as it must be if it is the beginning of the series;
or one begins with a pseudo-Ego (as Gentile does)
which by the act of creating the Not—Ego creates a
new Ego which is the only real one. In the first
instance one violates the conditions of a presupposi—
tionless logic; in the second, one commences with an
entity which is later destroyed as unreal, hence
invalidating metaphysically the argument by which
one arrives at its destruction. Either path is
fatal to the Gentilian idealism . . .3
And for this reason he concludes that:
If Gentile means more by "Ego" than pensiero pensante
connotes, or more by "Not-Ego" than pensiero pensato""
connotes, his derivation of the logic of the concrete
is in error. If he does not mean more in either case
he should not employ "Ego" and "Not-Ego," for

"^Holmes, The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile, p. 171.

3
ibid., pp. 157-158.
 391

certainly the connotations of the latter words are

different from those of the former.
Against this critique of Actual Idealism numerous objections
may be urged, and it is hard to know where to begin. Probably the
most fundamental trouble is that Holmes has fallen into the heresy
of intellectualism. He treats the whole problem of the relation
of pensiero pensante and pensiero pensato as a logical problem of
the relation of concepts. But it is not really that at all: it
is something much more concrete. It is a matter of actual
experience. Gentile may sometimes have given the impression—
especially in the central sections of his Logic—that he was
offering a logical demonstration. But he was not really doing
that at all, for it cannot be done. The whole essence of his
philosophy lies in its emphasis on actuality. It must be lived;
its categories must never be divorced from the actual process of
experience with all its determinate contents. If the extremely
abstract arguments of the Logic are translated into concrete
terms the fallacy of Holmes' thesis is Immediately apparent. In
actual experience there is no passage from an 'unreal' Ego to a
'real' Ego. There is on the contrary a dialectic within a real
but limited Ego, which through the recognition of its own limi-
tation is led to deny itself in order to realize a higher, ideal
Ego. Reality in Gentile's philosophy is not a logical category,
but a value concept. The whole meaning of his theories can never
be expressed in any but moral terms. Thus the concrete meaning of
the passage from the logic of the abstract to that of the concrete
is that "whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whoso-
ever will lose his soul for my sake, the same shall save it." To
 392

suppose that in this passage from abstract to concrete the first

('unreal') Ego provides the metaphysical validity of the second
('real') Ego is to misunderstand Gentile's whole theory of truth.
It is not the false which is the norm of the true, but always the
true which is the norm of itself and of the false (verum norma
sui et falsi). The passage to the concrete Ego takes place only
when it is recognized as concrete; and if it is recognized as
concrete, then that means that it validates itself and invalidates
the Ego which recognizes it. Certainly when one writes a
sentence such as this last, and then considers it abstractly, as
a statement possessing a certain logical grammar, a contradiction
is apparent. But there is no way in which this contradiction
can be removed within the realm of logic, or of abstract thought:
the contradiction is the problem of life itself, and its reso-
lution is the process of actually living. This is the moment
where the act supervenes: and there is absolutely nothing that
anyone can do to show anyone else what the act is; it cannot be
described for it cannot be objectified without losing its
character as an act. No one can live another person's life for
him; and therefore the actual idealist must be content to go on
his way leaving one critic (Romanell) to accuse him of
'reification',4 and another (Chiocchetti) to puzzle over the
question of how education is possible in actual idealist terms,
when the Spirit is always one and always perfect.5 There is

4Romanell, The Philosophy of Giovanni Gentile, p. 171.

5chiocchetti, La filosofia di Giovanni Gentile, pp. 355,
352, 338-339, etc.
 393

nothing that he can do for their enlightenment except to pray.

Until they see for themselves that the Transcendental Ego is not
something which is, but something that makes itself—that, in
concrete terms, it is the reality which it is their duty to
realize—they will not understand Actual Idealism. The Ego is
not generated by logical arguments any more than the world is
made with words.
Holmes' own proposed solution of the problem drives this
point home:
It may be said on the one hand that one commences
with pensiero pensato, without being forced to
characterize it as presupposed. It is_ that with
which one commences.
I confess that I can give no meaning to the second sentence of
this proposal: and I deny that the first sentence expresses a
possibility. If I have understood what Gentile means by pensiero
pensato, then any attempt to begin from it would involve a return
to the Hegelian position which his reform was designed to over-
come. It would mean the admission of Nature as logically prior
to the spirit.
Holmes himself seems to feel that this proposal is unsatis-
factory; for he continues directly:
Or it may be on the one hand that one starts with a
pensiero pensante which creates a pensiero pensato
and hence leads to the creation of a new pensiero
pensante. With this latter choice of terms the
primary pensiero pensante is not a pseudo-concept
in the light of the later one; the series is simply
expressive of thought as development, the act of
thinking being real in the moment of action and being
superseded by the new act.6

Holmes, op_. cit., p. 158 (both passages).

 394

This is the true Gentilian solution of the problem. In the light

of it Holmes' complaint against Gentile boils down to his
contention that 'Ego' and 'Not-Ego' are not equivalent to pensiero
pensante and pensiero pensato. But is this really the case? To
begin with, it seems to me highly doubtful whether Holmes' inter-
pretation of Fichte, with whom the usage originated, is the
correct one.7 Fichte's Ego bears no relation to Descartes'
thinking substance; and, whatever may be commonly meant nowadays
by the term,8 no one, surely, could remain long in any doubt about
the dynamic meaning which it bears in any Gentilian context.
The Ego is precisely pensiero pensante: but pensiero pensante
is not opposed to pensiero pensato in any exclusive sense. For
the latter is always and only the content of the former. Without
this content thought would not be actual.
Since pensiero pensato is not actual, the Not-Ego cannot
be simply identified with it. In so far as it is the Not-Ego of
the Ego, that is, in so far as it is felt as the Not-Ego, or in
so far as it is actual, the Not-Ego, like the Ego, is an a priori
synthesis of pensiero pensante and pensiero pensato.
The dialectic which constitutes the world must be a real
dialectic. But it cannot be real if its terms are unreal. As
logical categories both pensiero pensante and pensiero pensato
are unreal. The reality, the very actuality of the act of

7cf. above, Chapter I, p. 21, fn. 26.

8
The notion that the 'self or the person is a structure
constituted by activity, and not-a presupposition of activity,
seems to me to be the dominant meaning of 'Ego' in modern philo-
sophy. Cf. Peirce, Royce, Mead and most modern psychologists.
 395

thinking lies in the unity of pensante and pensato: and this is

precisely that determinate existence which is called individual
personality. Hence both Ego and Not-Ego are essentially personal.
It would be unfair to urge against Holmes considerations
drawn from the fully developed theory of pensiero pensante as a
dialectic of persons, expounded in Gentile's last work, which did
not exist when Holmes wrote his study. But a careful examination
of the theory of 'feeling' (sentimento) as the a priori synthesis
in which human personality, and hence all reality, has its
roots,^ and of the doctrine of society in interiore homine as it
appears in the Prolegomena to the Study of the Child, would have
saved him from the 'theoretical' interpretation of Actual Idealism
into which he fell. Thus it is very misleading to say, as Holmes
does, that "No man as an individual, not even Gentile, is real.
It is only the act of thinking that is real." The truth is
that for Gentile, the act of thinking is_ Gentile; it is actual
as Gentile, and it would not be actual if it were not Gentile.
But 'Gentile' is the whole world which is posited in the act,
including 'other selves'.
These other selves are essential to Gentile's doctrine.
Holmes expressed a legitimate doubt about whether other selves
were an a priori necessary element of the not-self, in the
scheme of Actual Idealism presented in the Logic. But Gentile's
refutation of egoistic solipsism (that the Ego in a world of
things would itself become no more than a thing) proves that he

9This theory appears in many places from the Summary of

Educational Theory onwards; but it reaches its fullest and fTnest
ilowering m the Philosophy of Art (1931).
 396

was always conscious like Royce, that the existence of other

selves was a moral necessity; and his various formulations of the
doctrine of society in interiore homine show that he always meant
to prove that the not-self.must a priori be another self. At
this point, the full importance of the Genesis and Structure of
Society becomes apparent. It is, indeed, as Mario Rossi said,
"the crowning of Gentile's system",1° for it is not simply a new
and interesting development in his idealism, but the coping stone
on which the whole arch depends. In the transcendental society
he found the golden bridge by which he could escape definitely
from abstract solipsism without arbitrary postulations or
resolves.
Just because the Ego exists necessarily in a world of other
persons it is true to say that Gentile's idealism is Ego-centric
and not, as Holmes contends, logo-centric.H This is certainly a
paradox; but I have not stated my argument, in this way in order
to startle or to shock the reader—I am too well aware that the
normal effect of Hegelian and neo-Hegelian paradoxes on the
English reader, is rather to anger and disgust, as well as to
confuse him. The paradox is necessary: for it expresses the
most fundamental essence of Gentile's whole Weltanschauung. It
means that the unity which is the end of Gentile's speculation is
not a reality intuited by the intellect, but an ideal pursued by
the will. "I" am real only so far as I am the act of thought,
the Transcendental Ego in whom and for whom all reality is

±u
Journal of Philosophy, XLVII (1950), p. 218.
liRolmes, op_. cit. , p. 177.
 397

unified; but equally the Transcendental Ego is real only so far

as I make it real.
It may seem that the whole of this argument is simply a
quarrel about the use of words in discussing a problem so
abstract as to be nebulous almost beyond hope of clarification;
and furthermore, it may well appear discourteous and in bad
taste for one who possesses the advantages of hindsight to harry
in this way the author of what remains by far the best critical
study of Actual Idealism yet written. My only excuse is that it
is of the utmost importance to controvert Holmes' thesis, if
Actual Idealism is to have any practical value at all. For it
is precisely here in this abstruse and seemingly almost irrele-
vant question of terminology that the root of all the weaknesses
and ambiguities of Gentile's philosophy is to be found. I must
emphasize, moreover, that my polemic against Holmes is on behalf
of Actual Idealism, not on behalf of "The Idealism of Giovanni
Gentile" about which he wrote his book. I do not mean to deny
that Gentile often spoke and wrote as if Actual Idealism were
•the logo-centric doctrine that Holmes says it is. But in so
doing he surrendered the priceless ideal of the Ego in exchange
for the worthless reality of the Logos.
A single instance will make the significance of this
exchange clear. Mueller tells us that one of Gentile's entourage
said to him one day: "If, for example, one asks him CGentile}
whether such-a—one, in such-and-such a situation, acted rightly,
he will reply that the Spirit always acts well."12 it does not

i2Mueller, La pensee contemporaine en Italie, p. 214.

 398

matter whether the speaker had ever tried the experiment; for as
Mueller says, the story illustrates a salient feature in Gentile's
character and hundreds of passages might be quoted from his
writings in which he adopts precisely this attitude. The use of
this a priori argument to escape a moral problem rests on the
notion of the Spirit as a logical necessity, not a free actuality.
Gentile forgets that the Spirit is_ actually his own act. In the
judgement of another's act there are two possibilities open to
him; or, more precisely, there are two duties that he should
fulfil: first he should prove, that is experience, the concrete
morality of the action, by entering into it and living it in the
process of historical explanation; and then he should judge it
concretely, by saying that he_ feels called upon to do about it
in the present or in the future, or if it touches his own life
only indirectly, by saying what is to be learnt from it for the
guidance of his present and future action. The moral import
of these two stages is summed up in the two remarks of Christ
concerning the woman taken in adultery: to her accusers he
said, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a
stone at her"; and then to the woman herself, "Go, and sin no
more." He did not say that she had not sinned (or that 'the
Spirit always acts well'); he went much deeper, and by under-
standing the ground of the action understood also its limitation
(the sin); and on this basis he said, "Neither do I condemn.
thee."

It may perhaps be objected by someone that I am not obeying

my own precepts and entering into Gentile's action. But I have
 399

already tried to do that in the previous eight chapters.13 what

I am trying to say now is that Gentile did not always act as he
would have acted if he had fully understood his own philosophy:
and that his use of his philosophy to account for his actions on
these occasions transformed it from an absolutely moral idealism
into an absolutely amoral positivism.
Concerning the relation between Gentile's idealism and
positivism Holmes makes an interesting remark:
The situation in the realm of value typifies the
entire difference between the two doctrines. It
involves the meaning of "I think. . . . " To the
neo-positivist this gives a hypothetical character
to all assertions: to the actual idealist it gives
a necessary and universal value to them.14
If we apply this distinction to practical questions we find that
where the positivist refuses to put any meaning into assertions
about ethical values, Gentile's insistence that morality is a
necessary and universal characteristic of reality takes all
meaning out of such assertions. For if 'the Spirit always acts
well1 then whatever is, is right and there is an end of the
matter. Thus an absolute theoretical insistence on the actuality
(positivity) of experience is practically equivalent to an
equally absolute insistence on the factuality of experience.
This conclusion should surprise no one who is accustomed to
regard the world as a dialectic process; for in dialectical

l3l am aware that I have not always succeeded. There are

some aspects of his Fascism, for example, which I have not
concretely understood, and for which therefore, I can find no
excuse. But I do not think that this partial failure invalidates
my criticism.
^Holmes, op_. cit., p. 217.
philosophy it is a commonplace that extremes meet.
Croce perceived very early in the development of Actual
Idealism that a strict application of the canons of absolute
historicism to the problems of practical life was self—stulti-
fying. This recognition is at the root of his emphasis on the
fundamental nature of the distinction between theory and practice
and the acute moral discomfort which he evinced from the very
beginning about Gentile's solution of the problem of evil, sprang
from the same cause. We have already discussed Gentile's
theory!5 and indicated how it ought to be understood. All that
is important here is to emphasize that the 'overcoming' of evil
is not achieved merely by the formal consciousness of it, but by
the determination not to recognize it, to root it out and abolish
it from the face of the earth. When the unity of the Ego is
taken always as an ideal, a duty still to be performed, it is
obvious that Croce's complaint that according to Actual Idealism
every man is good in the immediacy of his own conscience, is
invalid because no man exists in the immediacy of his own
conscience—if he did he would not be a person but a thing. The
correct interpretation of 'Whatever is, is right' is 'Nothing is,
except in so far as it is right.'

3. 'Fascist' Idealism.
The problem of political action for an actual idealist who
adopts this 'ideal' interpretation of Actual Idealism,16 is not

15see above, Chapter IV, pp. 141-147.

16it should be mentioned that the first critic to emphasize
the ideal character of Actual Idealism to my knowledge was
so much the problemi of what ought to be done, as the problem of
how it ought to be done. About what ought to be done actual
idealists, since they are human beings born in determinate
historical contexts, are bound, like other people, to disagree.
But if their philosophy means anything at all it should lay upon
them certain duties regarding the way in which they settle these
disagreements. It is at this point that the duality between
theory and practice must be attacked.
The importance of Actual Idealism as a theory lies in its
uncompromising insistence upon the unity of method and result.
In practical terms, as an ideal to be realized in the future,
this unity is an agreement that must be reached by methods about
which all parties are agreed from the beginning. The real unity
of method and the ideal unity of aim are the two roles of the
Ego in the logic of the concrete, which so perplexed Professor
Holmes. On the one hand the Transcendental Ego is the reality
from which the dialectic begins, and on the other it is also the
ideal towards which the dialectic moves. To establish unity
between these two aspects is the highest ideal of conscious life.
On this view it is instantly apparent that no actual
idealist should have cooperated with the Fascists after the

Ugo Spirito: "Idealism, in short, is not a philosophy that one

can grasp as a theory, the which, v/hen once it has been grasped,
gives us once for all and without further ado the explanation of
reality. When it is truly understood idealism makes us aware
that it has not given us a knowledge of the world, but has set it
before us as what ought to be. And to say that the world is
what ought to' be, is in its turn an affirmation that is never a
result, a conquest, but only an ideal." (L'idealismo italiano e_
i snoi critici, Florence, Le Monnier, 1930,-pp. 126-127). But
•the interpretation which I have given to this principle is my
own.
 402

institution of the dictatorship, since this action involved a

practical denial of the right of anti-Fascists to disagree with
the dominant party. ' The Fascist refusal to consider opposed
views meant that in place of a real (inward) unity in the
struggle towards an ideal, they substituted a material unity
which was only a facade covering a deep spiritual disunity, which
died away into apathy as the ideal v/hich had been denied gradually
faded in men's minds. Apathy and cynical indifference, which
Gentile regarded as the supreme evils, were exactly what the
Fascists with their 'religious' spirit finally produced. This
was a result that Gentile helped to bring about through his
confusion of the religious and the philosophical senses of the
word 'faith'.
Philosophical faith is open-mindedness. in theory, and
humility—that 'modesty' which Gentile so despised—in practice.
It is a belief in the truth, combined with a doubt of one's
possession of it. Religious faith on the other hand—Gentile
analysed it quite adequately in his Report on "The Lay School"—

17It should be noted that the Fascist denial of this right

in theory—a denial which v/as virtually coeval with the movement—
was not an insuperable barrier to cooperation. Everything
depended on how far they were prepared to go in actual implemen-
tation of this principle. In this respect the record of the
squadristi was a grim augury; but it was at least legitimate, even
if rather unrealistic, to hope that those bad days were gone
forever in October 1922. For an actual idealist to press points
of principle even in matters of theory would again be self-stulti-
fying; for then he would be reduced to association only with other
actual idealists. It would be ridiculous for instance to refuse
to cooperate with a democratic socialist party simply because
Marx said that the State would wither away. Either the socialists
will recognize their error or they will never recognize it because
the time for the 'withering' never comes. In either event their
belief makes little difference now.
is essentially the belief that one possesses the truth. The
question of the method of attaining truth, which is vital to the
philosopher vanishes altogether. The only problem is how to
spread it, and get it accepted: and this problem, which for the
philosopher, is or should be, another aspect of the central
speculative problem of attaining truth—since to attain truth is
at the same time to attain actuality, universality—is degraded
into a merely empirical problem of expediency and maximum
utility.
Man on his knees is nothing; he abases himself before the
All. But when he rises from his knees he has become the mouth-
piece of God, he speaks for the All, and other men are as
nothing in his eyes unless they identify themselves with him.
There is no reason therefore why he should not use force. Indeed
it is his most natural resource since it expresses the absolute
quality of his faith and of his message. For him there are not
two spiritual situations involved in the use of force, for there
is nothing spiritual about what is opposed to him. The situation
of the patient against whom he employs force is utterly distinct
from his: the two parties do not exist in the same world.
For a philosopher to adopt this attitude is to sink into
subjective solipsism. He must recognize the spiritual value of
his opponent or he cannot philosophize; and this means that he
cannot ignore the spiritual situation created for his opponent
by actions of his. 18 Therefore Gentile's distinction of tv/o
aspects of force, though it may have some value when we are

lQCf. above Chapter IV, pp. 167-171.

 40

seeking to understand the past conflicts of people who had not

attained to the idealist point of view, provides no excuse or
explanation for actions that we as actual idealists may commit.
The belief that it does is the worst of Gentile's many political
mistakes; and though I have the heartiest contempt for the moral
theory preached, doubtless in their own defence, by the staff of
the Giornale d'Italia to the effect that "acts of servile
surrender . . . would perhaps have deserved pity as the result of
a weak temperament," I am compelled to admit that their summary
accusation against Gentile was largely justified:
He broke the front of culture which ought to
have been the front of liberty and human dignity . . .
with acts of deliberate corruption and perversion
of intellectual and moral values, which gave a false
appearance of liberty to servitude, of national dignity
to party faction, of high educational value to the
brutal use of the blackjack.
False appearances is what his ideals were in the eyes of the
nation at large: and however much one may respect his sincerity
in pursuing them—it was indeed respect that he deserved, and not
pity which he would rightly have scorned—one cannot help feeling
that, had he been a better actual idealist, he would have
perceived that false appearances was all they could ever be as
long as such methods were used to inculcate them.
Nor is it any excuse to say that he fought for a more
enlightened attitude within the Party: the question is whether
he ought ever to have entered it, or at any rate stayed in it.
After his speech at the bicentennial celebrations of the death
of Vico in 1944, in which he eulogized the German invaders of
Italy, the B.B.C. referred to him as "the harlequin philosopher
draped in swastikas". Benedetto Gentile defends his father
 405

against this charge by citing a letter of about the same time to

Bruno Nardi:
. . . to curse the Germans or the Fascists is childish
foolishness. If the devil in person were at Cassino
or Nettuno, instead of the Germans, we should have to
pray for his victory.19
But if anything this confession makes matters worse: nothing can
alter Gentile's responsibility for his action in 1944. Whatever
his private opinion of the Germans he chose to support them
publicly, just as he chose to write that outrageous article about
the victory in Ethiopia in 1936, and to justify squadrismo in
1924. He would have been the first to admit that these choices
were what really mattered, and that the responsibility for them
was his own. On this matter it is meet that he should be his own
judge. He gave his opinion about people who plead the compulsion
of circumstances as an excuse for their actions, in the article
on "Realism and political fatalism".20
Croce was quick to seize on the basic weakness of Gentile's
philosophy as he actually applied it in his political career:
and a few of Croce's comments deserve to be remembered here. Of
the claim that Fascism was a religion, he wrote:
To describe as a religious struggle the hatred and
rancour that blaze up in a party that denies to the
members of the other parties the character of Italians
and abuses them as aliens, and in that very act sets
itself before their eyes as an alien oppressor . . .
sounds like a very poor joke.21

19vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, p. 54, fn. 1.

20
B.569 in B.8l8^; cf. above, Chapter V, pp. 214-216.
2lLa Protesta contro il "Manifesto degli intellettuali
fascistici", La Critica, XXIII.(1925), p. 311.
 406

He described Gentile's attempts to produce a philosophical justi-

fication for Fascism as "philosophical cretinism"; and about the
proposed justification of Fascist violence taken as an example of
this degeneration he had this to say:
It is a philosophical proposition that human
affairs are governed by force, and that every force
is a spiritual force. What else would they be
governed by? By lack of force? or by material force,
which not even the physicists succeed in finding, and
which they posit at best as a convention or an
expedient? For the philosophy of absolute spiritualism
(and perhaps for every philosophy, if every philosophy,
voluntarily or involuntarily, is always idealism)
material forces cannot exist. And this, at least to
me, is a transparent truth. But if at a certain spot
on the planet called Earth, the citizens of a State
in which it was previously the custom to debate their
affairs through those "methods of force" which are
called criticism and oratory and association and
voting and other such things, have adopted a different
custom of employing clubs and daggers, and there are
among them some who regret the passing of the old
custom and set to work to stop the new custom which
they describe as savage; what part then does the
philosopher play, who intervenes in the contest to
pronounce his verdict that every force, and therefore
even that of the club and the dagger, is a spiritual
force? It would not be enough to say that he is
only an inopportune theorist £,fa solo la parte dell'
inopportuno e_ dell' astrattistaT ; because unfortunately,
he also takes on the less harmless role of one who
encourages the use of clubs and daggers, and does it
in a more than usually blasphemous fashion. For he
does not offer political necessity as the motive for
his encouragement, or passion, or the voluntas that
stands pro ratione, but bases his stand on a philo-
sophical proposition, which, uttered on such an
occasion, amid people who are philosophically
uneducated, loses its true and universal significance
and is corrupted into a verbal sophistry; it degrades
the office of philosophy and takes the sincerity even
out of politics. The ignorant bullies will imagine
that the new severe and heroic philosophy condemns
civil methods as fatuous and recommends the savage
ones as valid . . .22

22postilla, "Fissazione filosofica", La Critica, XXIII

(1925), pp. 253-254. . .
 407

Unlike some of Croce's polemics against Fascism—for

instance his criticisms of the Corporate State—these complaints
were not based on theories which were peculiar to his own philo-
sophy; they express the spirit of Gentile's own philosophy far
more adequately than any of Gentile's apologias for Fascism.
And although Gentile might protest that he did not mean to imply
that brute force was as good or better than rational persuasion,
even a man as politically ingenuous as he was could hardly have
been ignorant of the significance of his words in the minds of
his audience. That is why it is so difficult to defend him
against the accusation of the Giornale d'Italia.
All of the equivocations on which Fascist idealism was
built stem from the realistic as opposed to the idealistic
interpretation of Actual Idealism. 'Man is absolutely free and
his freedom can never be taken from him': ergo we may act in
any way we please without endangering that freedom. 'No authority
is ever real except in so far as it realizes itself in the hearts
and minds of its subjects': ergo anyone who wishes to establish
his authority may legitimately use any means to attain his
(always universal, ergo moral) end. The history of Fascism,
fortunately for my present thesis, and I think also for humanity,
demonstrated the fallacy of this positivist interpretation of
idealism, with its strict concentration on the immediate event.
Gentile himself noted that the spiritual situations of
agent and patient in a transaction where force was employed were
completely different; but we have pointed out that nevertheless
the action is the same: and hence the positive aspect of it, as
an actualization of the spirit, does not express its whole
 408

meaning. Its compulsive character means that instead of being

united in it, the parties to it are divided by it: it is simply
the boundary line between two quite separate worlds. Now although
it is logically certain that eventually this duality will be
resolved, there is no necessity for its immediate resolution and
no means of telling which side will eventually cross the boundary
to conquer the opposed world. The necessity is not immediate
because it is not moral: it is not moral because the compulsion
is physical, natural—for no one would say that man's relation
with nature is moral as long as nature and not he is dominant.
A situation of spiritual stalemate might have persisted almost
indefinitely, with everyone retiring into the private world of
his own selfish egoism because the unity of the public world had
been shattered. Gentile protested in the second decade of Fascism
that too much emphasis on discipline and religion would make both
merely outward and formal. But he does not seem to have recog-
nized that the employment of authoritarian methods could never
be relied upon to produce anything else.
Of course Fascism was not purely authoritarian. There was
a certain measure of flexibility about it. But the career of
Gentile himself, the most prominent Fascist intellectual and
friend of Mussolini, a Fascist who possessed greater licence
than most, provides a graphic illustration of how narrowly
human critical spontaneity v/as confined. Considering the sense
of futility that grew up in Gentile's own mind in the later years,
the state of despair to which an ordinary citizen who was
sincerely concerned about the public good must have been reduced
may be imagined.
 At its very best Fascist idealism can only be described as
a regression towards a crude form of the politico-historical
theory of Hegel. The employment of authoritarian methods can
only be based on the fundamental tenet of the philosophical
tradition that Gentile called intellectualism: that is to say it
involves the assumption that the truth exists already. In a
dialectical theory of reality this presupposition takes the form
of the logic of the world-process, which is studied by the philo-
sopher. Since freedom lies in the realization of this logic,
the ordinary man only achieves freedom through obedience to an
elite who understand its nature. Certainly none of the more
advanced stages of logical development can be realized apart from
the obedience of the citizen; but since the only liberty lies in
this logical necessity, no violence can be done to the spirit in
any attempt to secure this obedience. The ideal is more real
than any mere chance existence. The political history of the
West since the Reformation is one long rejection of this abstract
rationalism: and therefore its revival may fitly be described
in the words which Gentile applied to Marxism—it was "one of the
most calamitous deviations of Hegelian thought."

4. Actual Idealism and the theory of democracy.

It was the more calamitous in that the source of the
perversion lies at the point at which Gentile advanced farthest
beyond the point which Hegel reached. The positivist interpre-
tation of Actual Idealism has its roots in the strict definition
of actuality given by Gentile. Hegel recognized a world of mere
appearance which did not possess that inward substance of
 410

rationality which would make it real: but Gentile, with his

insistence on concrete conscious experience, cannot allow any
distinction between appearance and reality. It would seem,
therefore, that the famous Hegelian dictum concerning the
identity of the actual with the rational and of the rational
with the actual must mean for Gentile just what ignorant and
prejudiced critics have said that it means in Hegel's moiith—
that the only criterion of historical rationality is success.
But for anyone who considers the matter from a strictly
actual point of view, it is precisely here, at the deepest root
of the trouble, that the fallacy of the realistic interpretation
of Actual Idealism is most clearly apparent. For from the actual
point of view reality is always in fieri; the act is unique and
is never completed. Gentile himself protested on occasions
against the punctual, instantaneous interpretation of the Act,
and gave as an example of an experience which came somev/hat nearer
to the eternal, non-temporal character of the Act, the reading
and appreciation of the Divine Comedy as a whole. There is no
fragment of experience that is not part of a wider experience
which can be considered as nearer to the total complex content
of the unique present Act. It is to these wider contexts that
we must always appeal in order to understand the actual signifi-
cance of a punctual moment of immediate experience. It is true
that every moment of experience is complete, whole, and perfect,
involving the whole universe and containing all the riches of
the spirit: but we cannot hope to understand from any act, in
itself, the way in which it mirrors the whole. Its total signi-
ficance is never explicit: our perspective is limited and
 411

determined by our own part in it; and much of it is hidden in the

secret hearts of others. Even our own part we cannot completely
understand: some of our motives are hid from us, and amid the
welter of hopes and fears that fill our minds, we cannot tell
which tendencies are mere velleities, passing shadows of feeling,
and which have the solid substance of the moral will behind them.
As Leibniz said, every instant is gros de 1'avenir; and it is the
nature of the future to be indefinite. It is only by first
acquiring some concept of the whole, that we can begin to under-
stand how that whole is mirrored in the instant of action; even
then the wholeness of the Act is only to be grasped as an ideal.
It is here that we part company with Croce. Croce argued
that the 'fixation' which was typical of 'philosophical cretinism'
was due to a failure to add to a speculative theory the deter-
minate practical content given by a particular situation. He
conceived that this content of passion and emotion was something
fundamentally different from philosophy (pure theory) and not
reducible to it. In his view therefore no speculative theory
could ever be turned to direct practical account, except by means
of ambiguities of the sort that we have noted in Fascist Idealism.
Yet in practice no one—least of all Croce himself in his work as
historian and critic—has ever been able to maintain this rigid
distinction between theory and practice upon which he always
insisted in theory. If "the efficacy of logic is in the realm of
logic, of doctrine in the realm of doctrine, of philosophy in
philosophy"23 it would seem that all theory is practically

23La Critica, XXI (1923), p. 127.

 412

valueless, and that man is a rational intelligence grafted on to

an irrational animal.
The truth is that Croce's criticism, like the doctrines
that he is criticizing, is an example of 'philosophical fixation'
(though certainly not of 'cretinism'). Although he takes the
analysis at least one step further than Gentile did, he also
stops short before it is complete. He perceives clearly that
the penumbra of passion and emotion, which surrounds any action
at the moment of commission, makes the application of the canons
of abstract historicism impossible. Only when the act has receded
into an historical context, in which the significance and impli-
cations of this penumbra have received determinate form, is an
objective evaluation possible. But he did not see that, out of
a deepened understanding of these same canons, a way might be
found of determining the flux of emotion subjectively in the
channels in which it ought to flow. Yet who more eloquently
than he has argued that all concrete practical experience is
governed by the moral conscience? and what is conscience but
the concrete form of the universal (reason, philosophy.) in
practical life?
Because of the terrible difficulties that beset any
attempt to divide reason from emotion in this way, we should not
sacrifice Gentile's doctrine of the union of theory and practice,
method and result, which forms the great achievement of his
philosophy, at least until we have made every effort to find an
interpretation that will give a certain measure of concrete
content to our a priori judgements. In these few concluding
pages I shall try to show that the 'ideal' interpretation will
 413

supply such a content, since through this interpretation the

theorems of the intellect become imperatives of the will.
We have already said that the problem of political theory,
on this interpretation is not the problem of what ought to be
done, but of how it may legitimately be done. The fundamental
conclusion that I have to urge against Gentile, Croce, Hegel,
and almost every other dialectical philosopher since Fichte (who
perceived this truth quite clearly), is that the method whereby
the spirit attains to actuality is not something empirical,
accidental, and relatively unimportant. It is the very substance
of the spirit, and is ultimately more vital than mere power or
effectiveness, despite the fact that power is a prerequisite of
actual existence. Concretely, means are more important than
ends because the ends can only become actual in the means.
The essence of Actual Idealism is freedom; and freedom
means the explicit realization of the spirit, in the fullness of
all its aspects, as an harmonious whole. The most general form
of the moral imperative, therefore, is that every act of life
should mirror this wholeness as explicitly as possible. This
means that the spirit informing every action should be as philo-
sophical, as self-critical, as possible. If there is one thing
above all that must be banished from an actual idealist's world,
it is that concentration upon one's own truth, one's own personal
sincerity, one's own vision, that constitutes 'righteousness'; the
spirit of Actual Idealism is contained in the prayer of the
publican. The only thing that the actual idealist can, and
indeed must, treat as a religious dogma, is tolerance. For
tolerance is a condition of that full explicitness of the spirit
 414

which is his highest end.

Tolerance is important because it is the duty of every
actual idealist to see that all others are enabled and encouraged
to live like actual idealists.24 Fascism discouraged this by
forcing the ordinary citizen into a position in which his moral
sincerity was too severely tested, and his choices were unfairly
weighted. It was so much easier to conform. But since conformity
involved sacrificing his conscience, his only resource, in order
to preserve some remnants of self-respect, was to retire from
the public world altogether. It is the aim of the actual
idealist to strengthen and consolidate this public world, and the
public conscience which sustains it.
This is the real meaning of all the talk about the ethical
State being a strong State. Here again Fascist Idealism repre-
sents only a terrible perversion: the confusion of the solidity
of this public yet internal world, with a policy of absolute
discipline at home and imperialism abroad, had a steady corrosive
effect upon the ethical bonds that bound Italians to one another,
and Italy to the rest of the v/orld. No ethical State can be
aggressive: and no State that is not ethical can long remain
strong in a world in which the doctrines of Actual Idealism are
understood. For the social duty, both of men and of States, is
expressed in the second of the great commandments. No man should
be tried beyond his strength; and this means in practice that no
one should wilfully thrust hard decisions on others. Everything

24ihe reader should take careful note that I say live like
and not live as. Cf. note 17 on page 402 above.
 415

that Gentile says about war as a test of sincerity applies

properly to one's own personal ideal of life. But one has no
right to compel others to live up to this ideal; and certainly
one should never thrust on others a harder choice than one has to
make oneself. The same principles apply in inter-State relations.
We have said that the moral imperative in its most general
form is that every act should mirror the whole as explicitly as
possible. It follows from this that everyone involved in the
action must be encouraged to make public the whole significance
that the act has or seems to have for him. What this means from
the individual point of view we have also seen: namely that no
one should make this publication difficult—or at the very least
that he should not make it more difficult for others than it is
for himself. From the point of view of the State, as the
organization of this public v/orld, this duty can be determined as
the principle of freedom of expression. Only through the free
exchange of opinion can we discover whether a public act expresses
a unitary spiritual situation for all of its participants: and
it is this spiritual community that is the substance of the State.
The whole of Mill's discussion of freedom of opinion falls
directly into place as a logical development of this principle.
But this is only a beginning. For in this free outflow of
private conscience into the public world, a great deal of chaff
issues with the good grain that is destined to bring forth fruit.
A method of 'winnowing' must be devised that is recognized and
accepted by all as a truly objective discipline that does not
fall more hardly on some than on others. It would be wrong to
see this discipline as something that has a purely negative
 416

significance, as a curb on irresponsible chatter and arbitrary or

idle fancy. Rather it is a positive fulfilment of the right of
free expression. No one can be expected to give his opinion
honestly, or to devote serious attention to the disciplining of
his own passions and particular interests, if he does not feel
that his opinion, when given, will be attended to. In the respect
that is paid to him by society he finds the objective realization
of his own self—respect: without it he is unable to live in the
public world.. It is not a matter of responsibility being forced
upon him; it is a matter of his being allowed to accept it.
It must be obvious that through a detailed determination of
this concept we could arrive at a transcendental deduction of
modern parliamentary democracy. I shall not pursue this
deduction further here, partly because it would take me too far
from the actual philosophy of Gentile which is my proper theme,
and partly because a deduction in detail would be just the sort
of misuse of the dialectic method of a priori reasoning, which
has in the past brought the philosophies of most previous
exponents of the method into varying degrees of ridicule and
disrepute. It would be wrong to assign an absolute value to
particular political institutions. What is important is to show
that our a priori speculative theory provides a ground for
weighing given procedures against one another in determinate
historical situations. This I hope that I have done.25

25it may seem that this limitation on the use of the

dialectic involves a capitulation to Croce's criticism. In a
sense, this is true; but it is vitally important to understand
what this sense is. The point is that it is impossible to carry
the abstract deduction of methods too far, because concretely
 417

It deserves to be pointed out, however, that the various

methods determined by the moral ideal of Actual Idealism—at
least at the level of highest generality—take the form of
'freedoms'. A citizen must have the right to express his opinion,
to challenge received ideas and express new ones; he must have
the right to form associations with others of like opinion in
order to make his ideas count in the public world, etc. Of
course these rights carry heavy moral responsibilities: but they
are 'freedoms' in the normal sense of the word; and therefore we
can say that, in the practice as in the theory of Actual Idealism,
'method' coincides with 'result', without implying any dangerously
ambiguous paradoxes, such as that 'maximum liberty coincides
with maximum force of the State'.
It seems to me that neither of the major traditions of
political thought in the West has succeeded in producing a theory
of human society which is adequate to explain the actual
experience of political democracy at its best. On the one hand
the classical school of individual liberalism has tended to treat
government as an evil. The moral implications of this speculative
hypothesis, which is a denial of the possibility of any community

method must coincide with result. Thus the admission of a

limitation in theory is not in any sense a denial of the essen-
tial unity of theory and practice: it is just another danger
signal against treating Actual Idealism as an abstract theory.
The primary corollary of Gentile's doctrine of the unity of theory
and practice is that no idealism-is ever truly actual except
when it expresses this unity—i.e. when it issues in a definite
moral resolve, made in a determinate historical situation. There
is no admission that at any stage a non-philosophical content of
passions, etc. supervenes upon an abstract theory: there is, on
the contrary, an assertion that the theory is never actual as
long as it remains abstract.
 418

between individuals except on the basis of the crudest material

interest, seem to me to be so abhorrent, that I am at a loss to
understand how so many sincere and intelligent men could have
accepted it. The salvation of this pluralistic approach has
lain in its strong empirical bias. A careful attention to the
actual facts of social experience kept the more influential
representatives of this tradition from perceiving the logical
consequences of some of their fundamental theories. But there
has always been a terrifying ambiguity about their speculative
formulations. Mill's attempt to distinguish 'private' and
'public' realms of activity, for example, is a failure, as anyone
would discover who tried to apply it literally in the complex
structure of modern society.
On the other hand the organic theory of society which stems
from Rousseau's theory of the General Will, has always been
vitiated by a failure to understand the nature of individual
freedom. According to this tradition, freedom, like truth, was
to be found only in the whole. Thus, government was seen as the
source of the good, and freedom v/as no more than the civil duty
of obedience, which the citizen might, at need, be forced to
perform. A freedom to which men can be compelled is not that
moral freedom of the spirit to which men have always aspired.
The salvation of this tradition—in the work of men like Royce,
Bosanquet and Hegel himself—has lain in the religious convictions
out of which it arose. But the ambiguity was always there; and
the history of Fascism and Communism provide ample evidence of
just how dangerous it is.
The difficulties of both traditions arose because one of the
two terms 'individual' and 'society' was taken as a basic presup-
position. The theory of individual personality as an internal
society makes it unnecessary to presuppose either term, and thus
gets rid of the egoistic pluralism which is the bane of one side,
and the immoral exaltation of power which is the bane of the
other. The fact that Gentile was misguided enough to associate
himself and his philosophy with a political movement that
inclined strongly to this second form of barbarism should not
blind us to his speculative achievement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 421

Section 1: Writings of Gentile.

Preliminary Note
This section of the Bibliography is based on V. A. Bellezza's
Bibliografia degli scritti di Giovanni Gentile (Giovanni Gentile;-
La vita e il pensiero, Volume III), Florence, Sanson!, 1950. THe
number given at the beginning of each entry is that which Bellezza
assigns to the corresponding item in his chronological list of
Gentile's writings; this number has been used throughout the thesis
to refer to any item listed in this section of the Bibliography.
I have indicated all corrections or additional material not derived
from Bellezza by the use of square brackets.
In the case of articles, etc., originally published in
journals and newspapers, which I have consulted in the various
volumes of collected essays that Gentile published at convenient
moments, I have not generally given full details of the original
publication, but only such information of time, place, and occasion
as seems relevant for the understanding of the article, together
with a reference to the reprint. For any volume that I have
actually used a full reference is always supplied.

1897
11. "Una critica del materialisms storico", (studi storici,
anno VI): reprinted in 1157, pp. 149-196.
14. Review of 'B. CROCE: II concetto della storia nelle sue
relazioni col' concetto Hell'arte'', (Studi storici^ anho VI):
reprinted in 615, pp. 379-39TI -

1899
30. La filosofia di Marx, (Pisa, Spoerri): reprinted in 1157,
ppT 141-303.
31. "II concetto della storia", (Studi storici, anno VIII):
reprinted in 615, pp. 1-60.

1900
49. B. SPAVENTA: Scritti filosofici, raccolti e pubblicati con
note e con un discorso sulla vita e sulle opere dell'autore
da G. GENTILE e preceduti da una prefazione di B. JAJA.
Naples, Morano, 1900, pp. CLII-408.

1901
59. "II concetto scientifico della pedagogia", (Rendiconti Acad.
Lincei, Vol. IX): reprinted in 1056, pp. 1-47^
 422

1902
67. Polemica h e g e l i a n a . Ultima r e p l i c a a l p r o f . B. Varisco,
(Naples, pamphlet, sequel to 6b*;: r e p r i n t e d i n 6ltf,
pp. 69-87.
68. "Filosofia ed empirismo", (Rivista di filosofia, ecc. ,
Bologna): reprinted in 618, pp. 45-6T.
70. "L'unita della scuola secondaria e la liberta degli studi",
(Rivista filosofica. 1902): reprinted with variant title .
in 813, pp. 9-54. j^Bellezza's page reference is- a slip/J

1903
76. La r i n a s c i t a d e l l ' i d e a l i s m o , (Naples, p a m p h l e t ) :
i n 61tf, p p . 1-25. -

1904
98. B. SPAVENTA: Principi di etica, a cura di G. GENTILE.
Naples, Pierro, 1904, pp. XXIII-186. (The introductory
essay by Gentile is reprinted in 618, pp. 141-158 [not
151-158 as given in Bellezza}.
102. "Fenomeni e noumeni nella filosofia di Kant", (La Critica,
anno II): reprinted in 701.
105. Review of 'J. B. BAILLIE: The Origin and Significance of
Hegel's Logic', (La Critica, anno II): reprinted in 701.
115. Review of 'A. PIAZZI: La scuola media e_ le classi diri—
genti', (La-Critica, anno II); For the reprint see 116.
116. Review of 'A. PIAZZI: Ancora sulla liberta degli studi
nella scuola media', (La CrilJica, anno II): reprinted with
ll£ under the title "Lib"erta ed eclettismo nella scuola
media" in 813, pp. 55-70.

1906
143. "La riforma della scuola media", (Rivista d'Italia, January
1906): reprinted in 813, pp. 71-115^

1907
154. P e r l a s c u o l a p r i m a r i a d i S t a t o , (Speech a t C a s t e l v e t r a n o ,
April"T907; p a m p h l e t ; : r e p r i n t e d with v a r i a n t t i t l e i n
1056, p p . 169-201.
r
158. "II concetto dell'educazione e la possibilita di una
distinzione scientifica tra pedagogia e filosofia dello
spirito", (Cultura filosofica, March 1907): reprinted with
a postscript of lyOtt in 1056, pp. 49-63.
159, 160. "La preparazione degli insegnanti medi", (two articles
in Nuovi Boveri, April-May 1907—cf. 190): reprinted with
additions in 813, pp. 197 ff.
161. "Istituti o cattedre?", (Nuovi Boveri, June 1907);
reprinted under the title "Le contraddizioni del liberisti"
in 813.
163. "Scuola laica", (Report rRelazionel to Sixth National
Congress of the Federation of Middles-School Teachers, Naples,
September 1907; Nuovi Boveri); reprinted in 1056, pp. 93-137.
165. Speech at above Congress concerning "Scuola laica", (Nuovi
Boveri); reprinted in 1056, pp. 137-153.
175. Review of 'G. CALO: L'individualismo etico nel secolo XIX',
(La Critica, anno V): reprinted in 618, pp. 225-237.
176". "Ancora del prof. Be Sarlo e della sua scuola", (La Critica,
anno V: polemical sequel to 175): reprinted in 6187"
pp. 238-241.

1908,
183. Scuola e_ filosofia, Palermo, 1908. Reprinted partly in
813 and partly in 1056.
190. "La preparazione degli insegnanti medi", (third article of
series in Nuovi Boveri, February 1908; cf. 159, 160);
reprinted in bl3.

1909
210. Il_ Modernismo e i_ rapporti tra religione e_ filosofia, Bari,
19097 Second edition at 619 (q.v.).
214. "Risposta a G. Lombardo Radice", (Nuovi Boveri, November
1909; sequel to 217): see 217 for the reprint.
216. "Questioni pedagogiche. II sofisma del doppio fatto."
(La Voce); reprinted in 1056, pp. 341-348.
217. "Bopo il Congresso. Esigenze ideali e tattica nella
riforma scolastica." (La Voce and Nuovi Boveri, October
1909): reprinted with 2X4 under the title "Scuola unica e
liceo moderno" in 813, pp. 133-151.
 424

1911
252. B. SPAVENTA: La politica dei Gesuiti nel sec. XVI e nel
XIX. A cura di G. GENTILE."~Taian-Rome7T9lT7 The lirtro-
ductory essay is reprinted in 898, pp. 173-196.
270. Review of 'J. ROYCE: La filosofia della fedelta' (Italian
translation-of The Philosophy of loyalty) in La Critica,
anno IX, 1911, pp. 297-299.

1912
275. "Veritas filia temporis", (Scritti in onore di R. Renier):
reprinted in 1223, pp. 331-355". O^elTezza's page reference
is a slip.}
277. "L'atto del pensare come atto puro", (Biblioteca filosofica
di Palermo, Vol. I ) : reprinted in 701.

1913
290. La riforma della dialettica hegeliana, Messina, 1913.
- Second edition at 701 (q.v.).
292. Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica. I: Peda-
¥ ogia generale. B a n , 1913. Fifth edition reprinted at
25T~(q.v.).
296. "Intorno all'idealismo attuale. Ricordi e confessdoni."
(Open letter to Croce in La Voce): reprinted in 898,
pp. 11-35.
297. "Idealismo e misticismo", (Biblioteca filosofica di Palermo,
Vol. Ill): reprinted in 1279, pp. 243-265; EnglisF~trans-
lation in 660, pp. 253-277.
300. "La filosofia in Italia dopo il 1850" (Section VI continued;
includes essay on Spaventa; La Critica, anno XI): reprinted
in 692.

1914
305. Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica.
Ill Pidatticsu Bari, 1^14. Fifth edition at 1252 (q.v.).
306. La filosofia della guerra, (Lecture at Palermo, October
1^T4; pamphietjl reprinted in 497, pp. 1-24.
308. A. ROSMINI: II principio della morale. A cura di
G. GENTILE. Bari, 1914. Gentile's "Concluding Remarks"
are reprinted as the Introduction to 1157.
 425

1915
333. "Bisciplina nazionale", (unidentified newspaper):
reprinted in 497, pp. 25-31.
334. Proclamation to the citizens of Pisa, March 26, 1915, (on
behalf of the Comitato Pisano di preparazione e_ mobilita-
zione civile): reprinted in 49T» pp. 32-34.
341. Review of 'G.A. FICHTE: Piscorsi alia nazione tedesca',
(La Critica, anno XIII): reprinted in 497, pp. 156-161.

1916
350. Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro, Pisa, 1916.
Sixth edition at 1279 (q..v.); English translation at 660.
354. I fondamenti della filosofia del diritto, Pisa, 1916.
TEird edition at 1157 (q.v.).
361. Review of 'V. BELBOS: L1esprit philosophique de 1'Alle-
magne et la penseg francaise', (~Ba Critica, anno~XTv71 for
the reprint see 372.
372. Review of 'M. BE WBLF: Guerre et philosophie', (La Critica,
anno XIV): -reprinted with 361 uncTer the title "Beformazioni
storiche" in 497, pp. 162-175.

1917
375. Sisterna di logica come teoria del conoscere, Volume I.
Pisa, I917T Third edition at 122? (q.v.).
382. "Critica dei luoghi comuni. Nazione e nazionalismo;"
(Resto del Carlino, Bologna, March 1917): reprinted in 497,
pp. 48-527
384. "Esame di coscienza", (Resto del Carlino, Becember 1917):
reprinted in 497, pp. 60-64.
386. Proclamation to the citizens of Pisa, November 6, 1917,
(see 334 above); reprinted in 497, PP. 34-35.
401. Review of 'E. von TREITSCHKE: La Francia dal primo impero
al 1871', (La Critica, anno XV): reprinted m 497,
pp. 176-190.

1918
408. "II significato della vittoria", (Rassegna italiana,
November 15, 1918): reprinted in 561, pp. 3-25.
 426

409. "Politica e filosofia", (Politica, anno I, Becember 1918):

reprinted in 561, pp. 188-216.
410., "Intendere per amare o amare per intendere? (Frammento di
una gnoseologia dell^amore)." (Nuovo Conyito, Rome,
September 1918): reprinted in 1279, pp. 11-13 [but not in
660J
413. "La riforma fondamentale della scuola", (II Messaggero
della domenica, Rome, August 1918): repriETfed in 562,
pp. 63-84.
415. "Un prestito della vittoria per la scuola", (Messaggero
della domenica, November 1918): reprinted under title "Per
la scuola della nuova Italia" in 561, pp. 31-36.
416. "L'unita della cultura", (Volonta, Vicenza, September 1918):
reprinted in 937, pp. 1-15.
418. "La guerra del Papa", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 124-128.
419. "II grande equivoco", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 129-133.
420. "Responsabilita", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918;
unsigned): reprinted in 497, pp. 69-73.
421. "II gran colpevole", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918;
unsigned leader): reprinted m 497, pp. 74-78.
422. "La colpa comune", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918') :
reprinted in 497, pp. 79-^3.
423. "Chiarezza e lealta", (Resto del Carlino, January 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 134—137.
424. "II Sessantasei", (Resto del Carlino, February 1918):'
reprinted in 497, pp. 191-194.
426. "II Papa e il patto di Londra", (Resto del Carlino,
February 1918; unsigned leader): reprinted in 497,
pp. 142-145.
427. "II socialista nell'imbarazzo", (Resto del Carlino,
February 1918; unsigned): reprinted in 497, pp. 237-241.
428. "Resistere", (Resto del Carlino, March 1918): reprinted
in 497, pp. 95-W.
429. "La crisi del marxismo", (Resto del Carlino, March 1918;
unsigned leader): reprinted in 497, pp. 242-246.
430. "Le due Italie", (Resto del Carlino, March 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 100-104.
 427

431. "II nemico interno", (Resto del Carlino, March 1918;

unsigned leader): reprinted m 497, pp. 105-109.
432. "La politica di Treitschke", (Resto del Carlino. April
1918); for the reprint see.468.
433. "Morale e politica", (Resto del Carlino, April 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 207-212.
434. "I pessimist!", (Resto del Carlino, April 1918): reprinted
in 497, pp. 110-llT^
435. "Esiste una scuola italiana? Lettera aperta a S. E. Bere-
nini." (Resto del Carlino, May 1918): reprinted in 562,
pp. 7-21.
437. "La sacra data", (Resto del Carlino, May 24, 1918):
reprinted under title "24 maggio 1915" in 497, pp. 115-119.
438. Review of ' G. FERRERO: La vecchia Eur op a e_ la nuova' ,
(Resto del Carlino, June T$lti): reprinted unHer the title
"Guglielmo Ferrero clericale" in 497, pp. 253-257.
439. "L'invincibile", ("Resto del Carlino, July 1918; unsigned):
reprinted under title "Bopo la vittoria del Piave" in 497,
pp. 315-318.
441. "La rivolta ideale", (Resto del Carlino, etc., July 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 309-314.
443. "L'equilibrio dei cattolici", (Resto del Carlino, August
1918): reprinted in 497, pp. 146-149.
444. "II problema adriatico da Tommaseo a Cavour", ("Resto del
Carlino, August 1918; book review): reprinted in 497,
pp. 323-329.
447. "XX Settembre", (Resto del Carlino, September 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 3i9rT22.
448. "La giustizia in cammino", (Resto del Carlino, September
1918; unsigned): reprinted in 497, pp. 342-345.
449. "Fatalita", (Resto del Carlino, September 1918; unsigned):
reprinted in 497, pp. 346-350.
450. "Equivoci e profezie", (Resto del Carlino, October 1918):
reprinted but misdated in 497, pp. 330-335.
451. "Prova suprema", (Resto del Carlino, October 1918; unsigned
leader): reprinted in 497, pp. 351-355.
452. "Ricordi e ricorsi", (Resto del Carlino, October 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 356-360.
 42&

453. "Croce e i tedeschi", (Resto del Carlino, etc., October

1918): reprinted in 497, pp. 2~2T-"27o~;
454. "Bisciplina", (Resto del Carlino, October 1918; unsigned):
reprinted in.497, pp. 361-365.
455. "Forche caudine", ("Resto del Carlino, October 1918;
unsigned): reprinted in 497, pp. 366-370.
456. "Epilogo", (Resto del Carlino, November 11, 1918);
reprinted in 561, pp. 26-30.
457. "Lo spettro bolscevico", CResto del Carlino, November
1918): reprinted in 561, pp~^ 3T-42.
458. "Ordine", ("Resto del Carlino, Becember 1918): reprinted in
561, pp. 42-W.
459. "Ammonimenti", (Resto del Carlino, Becember 1918; unsigned
leader): reprinted in 561, pp. 49-53.
461. "Stato e categorie", (Resto del Carlino, Becember 1918;
unsigned leader): reprinted in 561, pp. 95-100.
462. "Chiarimenti", ("II Nuovo Giornale, Florence, January 1918):
reprinted in 497, PP~ 138-141.
463. "Vita e morale militare", (Nuovo Giornale, January 1918;
book review) : reprinted in T97, PP~I 231-236.
464. "L'esame nazionale", (Nuovo Giornale, February 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 84-tfa.
465. "Per la futura scuola del popolo", (Nuovo Giornale,
February 1918; unsigned): reprinted in 497, PP« 269-274.
466. "I due Stati", (Nuovo Giornale, February 1918): reprinted
in 497, pp. 150-15T:
467. "L'educazione nazionale", (Nuovo Giornale, March 1918):
reprinted in 497, PP. 263-268^
468. "Le contraddizioni del Treitschke", (Nuovo Giornale, March
1918): reprinted with 432 (q.v. for title) in 497,
pp. 194-206.
470. "II progetto Berenini", (Nuovo Giornale, April 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 275-281. ,
471. "Lo specialismo della cultura", (Nuovo Giornale, April
1918): reprinted in 497, pp. 282-287.
472. "Antinomie socialiste", (Nuovo Giornale, May 1918;
unsigned): reprinted in 497, ppT 247-252.
 429

474. "Tra Hegel e Lenin", (Nuovo Giornale. May 1918): reprinted

in 497, pp. 213-218..
475. "La ripresa parlamentare. A lumi spenti." (Nuovo Giornale,
June 1918; unsigned): reprinted under title "II rispetto
delle istituzioni" in 497, pp. 120-123.
476. "Patto nuovo", (Nuovo Giornale, June 1918; unsigned):
reprinted in 497, pp. 258-262.
480. "I luoghi comuni della guerra. Idealismo e Kultur."
(Nuovo Giornale, July 1918): reprinted in 497, pp. 219-223.
481. "II regime della borghesia produttiva", (Nuovo Giornale,
August 1918; book review): reprinted under title »'L''ideale
politico d'un nazionalista" in 497, pp. 53-59.
484. "Edificare la patria". (Nuovo Giornale, September 1918):
reprinted in 497, pp. 89-94.
485. "La democrazia e la scuola", (Nuovo Giornale, September
1918): reprinted in 497, pp. 288-293.
487. "La Germania alia conquista della Russia", (Nuovo Giornale,
October 1918; review): reprinted under title "Russia e
Germania" in 497, pp. 336-341.

1919
497. Guerra e fede. Frammenti politici. Naples, Ricciardi,
1919, pp7 XI^T8l.
504. "L'idea monarchica", (Ressegna italiana, Vol. II, March
1919): reprinted in 561, pp. 147-161.
505. "Mazzini", (Politica, Vol. I, January 1919): reprinted
with 506 in 1280, pp. 1-63.
506. "Cio che e vivo di Mazzini", (Politica, Vol. I, March 1919):
reprinted with 505.
508. "La crisi morale", (Politica, Vol. Ill, November 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 69-91.
509. "Per la riforma della scuola media. Rinnovamento
esteriore?" (II Messaggero della domenica, Rome, January
1919): reprinted in 562, pp.
512. "Scuola di Stato e liberta d'insegnamento", (Messaggero
della domenica, June 1919): reprinted in 562, pp. 100-108.
515. "La Societa delle Nazioni", (L'idea Nazionale, January 1919;
interview): reprinted in 497, pp. 371-381.
 430

517. "Abuso di parole", (Resto del Carlino, January 1919):

reprinted in 561, pp. 101-10~5T
518. "Le due democrazie", (Resto del Carlino, January 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 107-113.
521. "Ognuno al suo posto", (Resto del Carlino, March 6, 1919):
reprinted as section 3 of "LiberaTismo e liberal!. Polemica
con M. Missiroli" in 561, pp. 175-179. 522 is printed as
section 2, pp. 169-175 (despite later date). [Bellezza
passes over section 1 (pp. 162-169) in silence; Gentile
dates it in February 1§19.]
522. "Confessioni di un liberale", (Resto del Carlino, March 23,
1919): reprinted with 521.
524. "II pericolo", (Resto del Carlino, April 1919): reprinted
in 561, pp. 180-lBTi
526. "Scuola e insegnanti", (Resto del Carlino, May 1919):
reprinted under title "Bopo il Congresso di Pisa" in 562,
pp. 94-100.
535. "la questione romana", (Resto del Carlino, August 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 134-140.
536. "L'esempio del governo", (Resto del Carlino, August 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 63-68.
538. "Aconfessionalismo cattolico", (Resto del Carlino,
September 1919): reprinted in 561, pp.~TTl-146.
540. "Per intendersi", (Nuovo Giornale, January 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 114-119.
541. "Fuori degli equivoci", (Nuovo Giornale, February 1919):
reprinted in 561, pp. 128-133.
555. Review of 'WILSON: Pace e guerra (Messaggi)1, (La Critica,
anno XVII):• reprinted under title "La filosofia dT Wilson"
in 561, pp. 120-127.

1920
556. Biscorsi di religione, Florence, 1920. Third edition at
1100 (q.v.TT
557. La riforma dell'educazione, Bari, 1920. Fourth edition at
ir28 (q.v.); English translation at 659.
561. Bopo la vittoria. Nuovi frararnenti politici. Rome, Societa
Anonima Editrice La Voce, 1920, pp. VII-218.
562. II problema scolastico del dopoguerra. Second edition
enTarged. Naples, Ricciardi, 1920, pp. 109.
 431

569. "Realismo e fatalismo politico", (Politica, Vol. IV, April

1919): reprinted in the Appendix to 818, pp. 243-258.

.1921
615. Frammenti di estetica e_ letteratura. Lanciano, Carabba,
1921, pp. 40T.
618. Saggi critici. Serie prima. Naples, R. Ricciardi, 1921,
pp. VIII-257.
619. II modernismo e_ i rapporti tra religione e_ filosofia. Bari,
Laterza, 1921, pp. VIII-251. First edition at 210. [This
volume contains essays of the period 1903-1920 which are not
separately listed as their interest for this thesis is only
indirect.]]
620. II concetto moderno della scienza e il problema universi-
tariol (Lecture at Rome, November 1§"2(77" pamphlet):
reprinted in 1056, pp. 367-401.
620 bis. Lezioni di pedagogia, Parte I a : Psicologia dell1
infanzia. Raccolte da V. BATTISTELLI. Rome, n. d. This is
the first edition of the Preliminari alio studio del
fanciullo. Seventh edition at 1225 (q.v.).

1922
658. Lavoro e cultura, (Address at Rome, January 1922; pamphlet):
reprinted" in 937, pp. 16-37.
659. The Reform of Education. Translated by BINO BIGONGIARI.
With an Introduction by B. CROCE. New York, Harcourt Brace,
falso London, G. G. Harrapl 1922, pp. xi-250. Translation
of 557. £Gentile rewrote the first chapter for this trans-
lation, giving it a less 'occasional' character.3
660. The Theory of Mind as Pure Act. Translated from the third
edition [1920T with an Introduction by H. WILBON CARR.
London, Macmillan, 1922, pp. xxviii-280. Cf. 350 and 1279.
664. "Educazione e liberta. (Ai maestri di Roma)." (Address,
May 1922; Levana, anno I): reprinted in 1056, pp. 403-416.
668. Speech to Higher Council of Public Instruction, November 27,
1922: reprinted under title "Parole di programma" in 1057,
pp. 11-17.

1923
692. Le origini della filosofia contemporanea in Italia.
Volume III: I Neokantiani~e gli Hegeliani. Parte 2 a .
 432

Messina, Principato, 1923, pp. 234. This volume contains

essays that first appeared in La Critica in 1913-1914.
Cf. 300.
699. Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere. Second
edition completed: Volume II. Bari, 1923. Third edition
at 1250 (q.v.). This is the first appearance of the second
volume, though some chapters were published in the Giornale
critico, anni I, II, and IV (1920, 1921, 1923).
701. La riforma della dialettica hegeliana e altri scritti.
Second edition revised and enlarged. Messina, Principato,
1923, pp. VI-283.
705. "La moralita della scienza", (Address to scientific
congress, April 1923): reprinted in 1057, pp. 61-79.
707. "II mio liberalismo", (Nuova politica liberale, anno I,
January 1923): reprinted in 818, pp. 119-122.
709. "L'insegnamento religioso nelle scuole", (La Tribuna,
January 1923; interview): reprinted in 10577 PP» 31-35.
714. "I concetti della riforma", (L'idea nazionale, March 1923;
interview): reprinted with variant title in 1057, pp. 49-56.
718. "L'educazione nella famiglia", (Address to Third National
Congress of Italian Women, May 1923): reprinted in 1057,
pp. 87-102.
720. "Redazione delle note informative", (Ministerial circular,
May 1923): reprinted under title "II dovere degli
insegnanti" in 1057, pp. 109-114.
722. "Per I'assistenza ai minorenni", (Address to First National
Congress for Assistance of Orphans); reprinted in 1057,
pp. 121-126.
723. Letter of May 31, 1923, to the President of the Council of
Ministers ^Mussolini] announcing his adhesion to the Fascist
Party: reprinted in 1057, pp. 127-128. translated in toto
on p. 231 above J
725. Inaugural address to First National Chemical Congress,
June 1923: reprinted in 1057, pp. 135-138.
726. Address at dedication of a Padua University War Memorial,
June 1923: reprinted in 1057, pp. 139-144.
729. "La fede antica", (Speech at Siena, July 1923): reprinted
in 1057, pp. 167-168.
731. "Su la applicazione della riforma", (La Sera, Milan,
August 1923; interview): reprinted under title "Risposta
agli accademici" in 1057, pp. 175-180.
 433

735. "La marcia su Roma", (L'idea nazionale, October 28, 1923):

reprinted in 818, pp. 123—124.
736. "Lo spirito informatore della riforma", (Address to Higher
Council of Public Instruction, November 15, 1923):
reprinted under title "II Rinnovamento della scuola" in
1057, pp. 189-227.
755. Biscussion in Senate, June 12, 1923: reprinted under title
"Bichiarazioni sul bilancio" in 1057, pp. 145-156.

1924
775. Bertrando Spaventa. Florence, Vallecchi, n. d., pp. 215.
Republication of the "Biscourse" prefixed to Gentile's
edition of the Scritti filosofici of Spaventa (1900, cf.
B.49 above). CBellezza quotes the following remark from
the Preface: "I republish it after fresh revision (con
nuove cure) and with some additions, but without changing
a line of v/hat I formerly said, or meant to say (dissi, o_
sapevo dire)." Unfortunately this assurance cannot be
relied upon. In at least one passage that has come to my
notice, there is a substantial variation between the two
texts. (Cf. the judgement passed on Augusto Vera in B.49,
p. CXI, with the corresponding passage on p. 131 of this
volume. )J
776. II fascismo al goyerno della scuola, Palermo, 1924.
Second edition at 1057 (q.v.) under the title La riforma
della scuola in Italia.
778. Il_ fascismo e_ la Sicilia, (Speech at Palermo, March 31,
1924; Rome, pampTTlet): reprinted in 818, pp. 41-63.
783. Rif orme costi-fauzionali e_ f ascismo, ([inaugural Address to
the Council of Fifteen, October 1924] ; pamphlet): reprinted
in 818, pp. 199-218.
785. F. FIORENTINO: Lp_ Stato moderno e le polemiche liberali.
Con pref. di G. GENTILE. Rome, 1924. The preface~Ts
reprinted under title "La tradizione liberale italiana" in
818, pp. 125-135.
787. "L'insegnamento religioso", (Ministerial circular, January
1924): reprinted in 1057, pp. 229-233.
788. "II riordinamento della scuola", (Corriere italiano,
January 1924; interview): reprinted under title "Risposte
a un questionario" in 1057, pp. 243-252.
789. "L'insegnamento religioso e i programmi di filosofia",
(Corriere italiano, February 1924; interview): reprinted
under title "Ancora l'insegnamento religioso e gl'incon-
tentabili" in 1057, pp. 257-262.
 434

796. "Le attualita del fascismo", (Nuova politica liberale, etc.,

Becember 1924): reprinted under title "Ognuno al suo posto"
in 818, pp. 139-141.
812. "Stato etico e statolatria". Giornale critico della filo-
sofia italiana, anno V (1924), pp. 467-468. ("Critical
notice of B. CROCE: Element! di politica, 1925).

1925
813. La nuova scuola media. Florence, Vallecchi, 1925, pp. 405.
8l8. Che cosa e_ il fascismo. Biscorsi e polemiche. Florence,
Vallecchi, 1^25, pp. ""26"2. (In addition to the various
articles listed separately under 1920-1925, this volume
contains Gentile's speech at the Bologna Congress of Fascist
Intellectuals in-March 1925, which was not published else-
where. See "II fascismo nella cultura", pp. 95-116.)
824. C. CAVOUR: Scritti politici (ed. Gentile), Rome, 1925.
Pref. reprinted under title "II liberalismo di Cavour" in
818, pp. 179-196; also in 1139, pp. 97-113.
826. La riforma scolastica, (Speech in Senate, February 1925;
pamphlet, etc.}: reprinted with a postscript of April 1925
in 1057, pp. 305-372, under title "Apologia".
827. "II compito della cultura fascista", (Vita nova, Bologna,
July 1925): reprinted under title "Le riviste del fascismo"
in 818, pp. 167-170.
828. Liberta e liberalismo, (Lecture at Fascist University of
Bologna, March 1925; pamphlet): reprinted with variations
in 818, pp. 65-94.
830. "Croce e il suo liberalismo", (L'Epoca, March 21, 1925):
reprinted with variant title in Bib", pp. 153-159.
831. Letter to L'Epoca, March 25, 1925 (Reply to Croce's retort
to 830—published in Giornale d'Italia on March 24th).
Reprinted in 818, pp. 159-161.
832. "Contro l'agnosticismo della scuola", (Corporazione della
scuola, May 1925): reprinted in 818, pp. 163-166 and in
937, PP. 38-43.
833. "II carattere religioso della presente lotta politica",
(L'Educazione politica, March 1925): reprinted with variant
title in 818, pp. 143-151.
834. "Contro certi critici anonimi", (L'idea nazionale, October
1925): reprinted in 818, pp. 137-133":
 435

836. "L'Istituto Nazionale Fascista di cultura", (Inaugural

Address for INFO, Becember 19, 1925): reprinted in 937,
pp. 44-66.
837. "II contenuto etico del fascismo", (Lecture, Florence,
March 1925: Fascist periodicals): reprinted under title
"Che cosa e il fascismo" in 8l8, pp. 9-39.
844. Relazioni e proposte della Commissione per lo studio delle
riforme cosxatuzionalil (Official publicationj: contains a
Report by G. G. to Mussolini (July 1925) reprinted in 818,
pp. 231-241.
845. Preface tJuly 19253 to »C. LICITRA: Bal liberalismo al
fascismo' : reprinted in-8l8, pp. 171-^177".

1926
864. Frammenti di storia della filosofia, Serie prima.
Lanciano, Carabba, 1926, pp^ 255.
873. "II maestro nella scuola riformata", (Nuova scuola
italiana, May 1926): reprinted in 1057, pp. 377-397.
877. "L'Accademia d'Italia", (Speech in Senate, March 1926):
reprinted in 937, pp. 122-140.
880. "Revisione", (Regime Fascista, etc., January 1926):
reprinted in 937, pp. 92-98 and in 1104, pp. 59-63.
881. "Parole ai giovani", (L'Educazione politica, etc.,
Becember 1926): reprinted in 937, pp. 141-145.
882. "II nuovo Consiglio Superiore della Pubblica Istruzione",
(L'Educazione politica, February 1926): reprinted in 937,
pp. 99-102.
883. "Fascismo e idealismo", (L'Educazione politica, October
1926): reprinted under tiTle "Bichiarazioni" in 937,
pp. 67-69.
889. "Avvertimenti attualisti", (Giornale critico, anno VII,
1926): reprinted with variant title in 1075, pp. 249-281.
890. Postscript to the article of V. ARANGIO-RUIZ: "L'individuo
e lo Stato", Giornale critico della filosofia italiana,
anno VII (1926), pp. 151-152.

1927
898. Saggi critici. Serie seconda. Florence, Vallecchi, 1927,
pp. 218.
 436

906. "II sentimento", (Atti della Soc. Ital. per il progresso

delle scienze, October-November 1927): reprinWd in 1075,
pp. 38^6T:
912. "La questione romana", (Corriere della sera, September
1927): reprinted in 937, pp. 182-IBFI
912 bis. "Nuovi documenti sulla questione romana", (Corriere
della sera, October 1927): reprinted in 937, pp. 189-195.
913. "La riforma universitaria", (Corriere della sera, etc.,
November 1927): reprinted in 1057, pp. 419-425.
914. "Risposta al sen. Queirolo", (Corriere della sera, November
1927): reprinted as postscript to 913 in 1057, pp. 425-428.
918. "Nuove discussioni in Senato", (Speech in Senate, June
1927): reprinted in 1057, pp. 403-418.
919. "Continuando", (Educazione fascista—replacing L'Educazione
politica—January 1927): reprinted in 937, pp. 7*0-75.
920. "I compiti dell'I.N.F.C.", (II Tevere, February 1927;
interview): reprinted with variant title in 937, pp. 76-81.
921. "II problema religioso in Italia". (Lecture at Fascist
University of Bologna, February (?) 1927): reprinted in
937, PP. 146-181.
922. "Stampa fascista e responsabilita di partito", (Educazione
fascista, February 1927): reprinted in 937, pp. 116-121.
924. "II nostro programma", (Educazione fascista, May 1927;
speech): reprinted with variant title in 937, pp. 82-91.

1928
937. Fascismo e cultura. Milan, Treves, 1928, pp. 207.
941. "The Philosophic Basis of Fascism", Foreign Affairs,
Vol. VI (January 1928), pp. 290-304. [An abridged version
of 948.3
942. "Brunofobia. ipocrisia e altre cose", (Educazione fascista,
January 1928): reprinted in 937, pp. 196-200.
943. "La constituzionalizzazione del Gran Consiglio fascista",
(Educazione fascista, February 1928): reprinted in 1104,
footnote to pp. 72-73.
944. "II discorso di Napoli e la gazzara clericale", (Educazione
fascista, February 1928): reprinted in 937, pp. 201-205.
 437

946. "La legge del Gran Consiglio", (Educazione fascista,

September 1928): reprinted in 1104.
947. "The philosophy of the modern State", The Spectator,
London, November 3, 1928, pp. 36-37 ; ISTttalian in 1104.
948. "L'essenza del fascismo" in G. L. POMBA (Editor): La
civilta fascista. Turin, UTET, 1928, pp. 97-118. ThTs is
the First edition of the essay Origin! e dottrina del
fascismo; Third edition at 1104*1 Cf. aTso 941.
953. "La nuova universita italiana", (La Nazione, August 1928;
[Speech at SienaJ): reprinted in l0~57, pp. 429-432.
954. "Un ministro calunniato", (Corriere della sera, October
1928): reprinted in 1057, pp. 43V437*"-
959. "Bifesa della pedagogia", (Giornale critico, anno IX, 1928):
reprinted in 1056, pp. 65-72.
960. "Benedetto Croce", Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana, anno IX-(1928), pp. 79-80. (A note on Croce's
History of Italy from 1871 to 1915.)
964. "Filosofia come vita morale e vita morale come filosofia",
Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, anno IX (1928),
pp. 233-234. [Note on an article by Croce with the same
title in La Critica, 1928, pp. 77 ff.)
965. "Alleanze imprevedute". Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana, anno IX (1928), pp. 319-320. ("Note on an article
by Croce in La Critica, 1928, reprinted in Politics and
Morals, pp. T25-130.)

1929
970. "La Conciliazione", (Educazione fascista, February 1929):
reprinted in 1104, pp. 93-97.
973. "La politica scolastica del Regime", (Corriere della sera,
March 1929): reprinted in 1057, pp. 439-451.
974. "Politica ed economia", (Politica sociale, May 1929):
reprinted with variant title in 1104",'" pp". 84-86.
976. "Boppia anima", (Politica sociale, Becember 1929):
reprinted with 974 in 1104, pp. 86-89.
980. "La filosofia e lo Stato", (Giornale critico, anno X,
1929): reprinted with variant title in 1075, pp. 174-188.
 438

1930
989. "Biritto e politica",' (Archivio di studi corporativi, 1930):
reprinted as "La politica", Chapter VIII of 1157,
pp. 121-132. .
991. "I problemi attuali della politica scolastica", (Speech in
Senate, April 12, 1930): reprinted in 1057, pp. 453-477.
993. "II sistema corporativo dello Stato", (Politica sociale,
May 1930): reprinted under title "II Consiglio Nazionale
delle Corporazioni" in 1104, pp. 90-92.
995. "II partito e lo Stato", (Educazione fascista, etc.,
October 1930): reprinted in 1104, pp. 79-83.
997. "Ba formazione politica della coscienza nazionale",
Educazione fascista, anno VIII (Becember 1930), pp. 675-686.
(Inaugural address for 1930-1931 session of INFC, Becember 5,
1930). £This speech is a bitterly sarcastic attack on
Croce, and a confession that the policy of 'softness'
towards intellectuals which Gentile had advocated in-1925
(cf. B.836 above) was a mistake. He even advocates a purge
of those who think that the dictatorship has now served its
purpose. I take this speech to be a kind of penance for
B.991 above J

1931
1012. La filosofia dell'arte. Milan, Treves, 1931, pp. VIII-377.
(jDpere complete, VoTl IV).
£A second edition was published in 1950 by Sansoni of
Florence, (pp. VIII-325), too late for inclusion in
Bellezza. An English translation of this work was prepared
by E. F. Carritt for publication by E. W. Titus of Paris
in 1932. But it remained unpublished; a proof copy can be
consulted in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and some
passages are given in Philosophies of Beauty, edited by
E. F. Carritt, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1931, pp. 320-
330.3
1013. Per aktuale Idealismus. Zwei Vortrage. Tubingen, 1931.
Reprinted in Italian in 1075, pp. 1-37.
1017. "II concetto dello Stato in Hegel", (Communication to
Second Hegel Congress, Berlin, October 1931): reprinted as
Chapter VII, "Bo Stato", in 1157, pp. 103-120.
10 21. "Ideologie correnti e critiche facili", Politica sociale,
anno III (March 1931), pp. 167-170.
1023. "Risorgimento e fascismo", (Politica sociale, Becember
1931): reprinted in 1139, pp. 115-120.
 439

1026. "II fascismo e gl'intellettuali", (Educazione fascista,

February'1931): reprinted in 1104, pp. 68-71.
1027. "Le dichiarazioni del Birettorio e il Concordato",
(Educazione fascista, July 1931): reprinted under title
"Bopo due anni" in 1104, pp. 98-103.

1932
1056-. Scritti pedagogici. I: Educazione e_ scuola laica.
Fourth edition revised and enlarged. Milan, Treves-Tree cani-
Tumminelli, 1932, pp. VIII-430, (Opere complete, Vol. V.i).
1057. Scritti pedagogici. Ill: La riforma della scuola in
Italia. Second edition (of 776*7", Milan, Treves-Treecani-
Tumminelli. 1932, pp. VIII-495. (Opere complete,
Vol. V.iii). ("Apart from the various items listed this
volume contains a number of other articles of the period
1922-1932 which are not of sufficient importance to deserve
separate mention.3
1071. "II liberalismo", Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana, anno XIII (1932), pp. 78-79*"
1073. "Individuo e Stato", Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana, anno XIII (1932), pp. 313-315.

1933
1075. Introduzione alia filosofia. Milan-Rome, Treves-Treccani-
Tumminelli, 1933, pp. 289. (Opere complete, Vol. VII).
1082. "Hegel e il pensiero italiano", (Inaugural Address to
Third Hegel Congress, Rome, April 1933): reprinted in 1139,
pp. 205-220.
1085. "La nuova universita italiana e il problema dei giovani",
(Inaugural Address at beginning of academic year at Scuola
Normale Sup'eriore, Pisa, November 1933): reprinted in 1139,
pp. 341-361.
IO87. "Tutti d'accordo, no!", Leonardo, anno IV (March 1933),
pp. 89-92.

1934
1100. Biscorsi di religione. Third edition revised. Florence,
Sanson!, 1"3"J4, pp. VIII-107.
1103. La donna e il fanciullo., 'Due conferenze. Florence,
Sansoni, 1*T3"*"7 PP« 5*7*1 fan these two lectures Gentile's
theory of the family, and of the dialectical distinction
 440

between 'public' and 'private', is more fully developed

than elsewhere. It is not quite accurate to say, as I
have said in this thesis, that this distinction is
abolished in Actual Idealism. Cf. above p. 112,"fn. lQO.}
1104. Origini e_ dottrina del fascismo.. Third edition revised
and enlarged"*! Rome, Istituto Nazionale Fascista di
Cultura, 1934, pp. 108. (First edition at 948 above.)
1107. "Economia ed etica", (Communication to INFC, Rome, April
1934: Leonardo, May 1934): reprinted in 1139, pp. 271-293.
1114. "Mazzini e la nuova Italia", (Lecture at Genoa, June 1934):
reprinted in 1280, pp. 127-152.
1117. "L'unita di Mussolini", Corriere della sera, May 15, 1934.
{Quoted in part by Finer: Mussolini's Italy, pp. 301-302.3

1935
1128. La riforma dell'educazione. Biscorsi ai maestri di
Trieste. Fourth edition revised, Florence, Sanson!, 1935,
pp. VIII-187. (Opere Complete Vol. I). For the first
edition see 551; for the English translation see 659.
1131. "II carattere dell'idealismo e la presente filosofia
italiana", (Lecture at Charles University, Prague, April
1935): reprinted under title "II carattere religioso
dell'idealismo italiano" in 1139, PP. 323-340.

1936
1139. Memorie Italiane _e problem! della filosofia e_ della vita.
Florence, Sanson!, 1936, pp. VI-387 (Opere complete
Vol. VIII).
1144. L'ideale della cultura e_ 1' Italia presente, ( JAddress to
th~e Company of Artists, Naples, February 1936J; Rome,
pamphlet): reprinted in 1139, pp. 363-383.
1145. "Bopo la fondazione dell'Impero", Civilta Fascista,
anno III, no. 6 (June 1936), pp. 321-334.
1148. "On the transcending of time in history" (translated by
E. F. Carritt) in Philosophy and History, Essays presented
to Ernst Cassirer, Oxford University Press, 1936, pp. 91-105.
In Italian in 1139.
1149. "L'Istituto Nazionale di Cultura Fascista", Civilta
Fascista, anno III, no. 12 (Becember 1936), pp. 769-774.
(Inaugural Address for the course of lectures of Year XV,
Becember 19, 1936).
 441

1937
1157. I Fondamenti della filosofia del diritto con aggiunti due
sTudi sulla FiTosofia"ai Marx. T*hi-rd edition" revised anoT"
enlarged Florence, Sanson!, 1937, pp. VII-310. (Opere
complete Vol. IX).
1175. "La calunnia antiaccademica", Leonardo, anno VIII, no. 1
(January 1937), p. 31. (Signed A. Z.).
1176. "Vox clamantis", Leonardo, anno VIII, no. 2 (February
1937), p. 68. (Signed A. Z.).
1177. "L'antica minaccia della scuola unica", Leonardo,
anno VIII, nos. 3-4 (March-April 1937), pp. 119-120.
(Signed A. Z.).
1178. "Programmi, programmi . . . . e il signor de La Palisse",
Leonardo, anno VIII, no. 5 (May 1937), pp. 170-171.
(Signed A. Z.).
1179. "La scuola unica e i corrucci del Signor de La Palisse",
Leonardo, anno VIII, no. 6 (June 1937), p. 207. (Signed
A. Z.).

1180. "Protesta del Signor de La Palisse", Letter to the editor,

Leonardo, anno VIII, nos. 10-11 (October-November 1937),
p. 363. (Signed: Giacomo di Chabannes, signor de La
Palisse).

1938
1190. "Bichiarazione . . . . Lapalissiana", Leonardo, anno IX,
no. 1 (January 1938), p. 26. (Admission of his authorship
of-1175-1180 above)!
1195. "La filosofia delle quattro parole", Giornale critico
della filosofia italiana, anno XIX (1938), p. 163.
(Polemical note against Croce).

1939
1213. "La Carta della Scuola", Corriere della sera, March 22,
1939, p. 5.

1940
1223. II pensiero italiano del Rinascimento. Third edition
eETarged. Florence, Sanson!, 1940, pp. XII-432. (Opere
complete Vol. XI).
 442

1224. Sisterna di logica come teoria del conoscere, Volume I.

Third edr'bTon revised. Florence, Sanson!, 1940,
pp. VIII-287. (Opere complete Vol. XIII, i ) . For the
first edition see 375.
1225. Preliminari alio studio del fanciullo. Seventh edition
revised. FTorence, Sansoni, 1940, pp. VIII-96. For the
first edition see 620 bis.
1232. "Biscussione del Bisegno di legge; Istituzione della
scuola media", (Senate, June 15, 1940): preprinted in
BOTTAI: La nuova scuola media, Florence, Sansoni, 1941,
pp. 88-90-y

1941
1241. La filosofia italiana contemporanea. Due scritti.
Frorence, Sansoni, 1941, pp. 50.
1246. "La filosofia del fascismo", II libro italiano nel mondo,
1941, fasc. V-VI, pp. 21-33.
1249. "La distinzione crociana di pensiero e azione", Giornale
critico della filosofia italiana, anno XXII (19417",
pp. 274-278. (A critical notice of, and reply to, Part I,
Chapter VII of History as the Story of Liberty).

1942
1250. Sisterna di logica come teoria del conoscere, Volume II.
Third edi*rTon revised. Florence, Sansoni, 1942, pp. 388.
(Opere complete Vol. XIII, ii). Second edition (first
publication of Volume II) at 699.
1251. Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica.
I: Pedagogia generale. Reprint of Fifth edition, Florence,
Sansoni, 1942, pp. XII-270. (Opere complete Vol. VI, i ) .
For the first edition see 292.
1252. Sommario di pedagogia come scienza filosofica.
IT! BidatTnTca". Fifth edition revised^ Florence, Sansoni,
1942, pp. 254. (Opere complete Vol. VI, ii). For the first
edition see 305.
1263. "A Benedetto Croce", Giornale critico della filosofia
italiana, anno XXIII (1942), p. 120.

1943
1264. La mi a religione, Florence, Sansoni, 1943,, pp. 36.
(lecture at University of Florence; cf, 1277).
 443

1265. Biscorso agli Italiani, (June 24, 1943; and as pamphlet):

preprinted in Giovanni Gentile; La vita e_ il pensiero, '
Vol. IV, pp. b5-8l. (See Section II of this Bibliography) .J
1267. "L'immanenza dell'azione", (Lecture of March 1942):
reprinted in 128&, -pp. 173-188.
1272. Speeches at "Primo convegno nazionale di studi filosofici"
(Becember 1941): Volume II, Biscussioni, Rome, R. Istituto
di studi filosofici, 1943.
1274. "Ricostruire", (Corriere della sera, Becember 28, 19430:
preprinted in Vita""e***pensiero, Vol. IV, pp.. 83-87."J
1277. "Postilla a 'La mia religione'", Giornale critico della
filosofia italiana, anno XXIV (1943), pp. 210-211.
1278. "Lo scandalo dell"autoctisi", Giornale critico della
filosofia italiana, anno XXIV (1943), pp. 313-316.

1944
1279. Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro. Sixth
edition revised. Florence, Sansoni, 1944, pp. VIII-272.
(Opere complete Vol. XII). First edition at 350; English
translation at 660.
1280. I profeti del Risorgimento italiano. Third edition
enlarged. Florence, Sansoni, 1944, pp. VIII-220. (Opere
complete Vol. XV). Cf. 505, 506.
1282. "Ripresa" (Nuova Antologia, January 1944): [reprinted in
Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 89-93.J
1283. "Giambattista Vico nel secondo centenario della morte"
CBellezza erroneously gives centenario della nascita],
(Nuova Antologia, April 1944): preprinted in Vita e pensiero,
Vol. IV, pp. 10 5-119.]
1284. "II sofisma dei prudenti" (Civilta fascista, Bologna, April
1944): [reprinted in Vita e pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 121-126.]
1285. "Questione morale", (Italia e_ civilta, Florence, January
1944): [reprinted in Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 95-98.]
1286. Letter (concerning 1274) to Corriere della sera, January
1944: [reprinted in Vita e_ pensiero, Vol. IV, pp. 87-88.]

1946
1288. Genesi e_ struttura della societa. Saggio di filosofia
pratica. Florence, Sansoni, 1946, pp. 192. (Cpere complete
Vol. XVI).
 444

Section II: Critical and expository studies of Gentile's; work.

Preliminary Note
The Fondazione Giovanni Gentile per gli studi filosofici in
Rome has published a series of volumes containing biographical
and critical material about many aspects of Gentile's career.
This series is largely a cooperative undertaking and is therefore
listed first along with the two indispensable periodicals. Other
works then follow, arranged alphabetically according to the
author^s name. Some works of a more general scope have been
included because, although they are not properly 'critical and
expository studies of Gentile', a definite picture and a con-
sidered judgement of some aspect of his activity, can be gained
from each of them.

Giovanni Gentile: La vita e_ il pensiero, Florence, Sansoni (for

the Fondazione Giovanni Gentile), 1948 ff.:-
Volume I (1948): Essays by various authors, pp. VIII-389.
Originally published in Giornale critico della
filosofia italiana, anno XXVI (1947).
Volume II (1950): Essays by various authors, pp. 215.
Volume III (1950): Vito A. BELLEZZA, Bibliografia degli
scritti di Giovanni Gentile, pp. 143.
Volume IV (1951): Benedetto GENTILE, Bal Biscorso agli
Italiani alia morte, pp. 127.
Volume V (1951): Essays by various authors, pp. 267.

Giornale critico della filosofia italiana:-

anno I - anno XXV (1920-1944), edited by Gentile,
anno XXVI - (1947- ), edibed by committee of the
Fondazione Giovanni Gentile.

La Critica, anno I - anno XLII (1903-1944): edited by Benedetto

Croce.
Quaderm della Critica, Volume I - Volume VII (1945-1951),
edited by Benedetto Croce.

Battaglia, Felice: II valore nella storia, Bologna, U.P.E.B. del

dott. Cesare "Zuffi, 1948, pp. 190.
 445.

Bellezza, Vito A.: "Alterita e comunicazione nel pensiero del

Gentile" reprinted from II solipsismo, Padua, Editoria
Liviana, 1950, pp. 23.
Binchy, Baniel A.-: Church and State in Fascist Italy, London,
Oxford University Press, 1940, pp. x—774.
Boas, George: "Gentile and the Hegelian Invasion of Italy",
Journal of Philosophy, Vol.. XXIII (1926), pp. 184-188.
Bosanquet, Bernard: The Meeting of Extremes in Contemporary
Philosophy, London, Macmillah, 1921, pp. xxviii—220.
Chiocchetti, Emilio: La filosofia di Giovanni Gentile, Milan,
"Vita e Pensiero", 1922, pp. XIV-477.
Collingwood, Robin George and others.; "Symposium: Can the New
-Idealism dispense v/ith mysticism." in Relativity, Logic and
Mysticism (Aristotelian Society, .Supp1ementary Volume ITTJ",
London, Williams and Norgate, 1923, pp. 148-184.
Crespi, Angelo>:- Contemporary Thought of Italy, London, Williams
and Norgate, 192b, pp. x-249.
Croce, Benedetto: Conversazioni Critiche, Serie seconda, Fourth
edition revised, Bari, laterza, 1950, pp. 66-95.
: Conversazioni Critiche, Serie quarta, Bari,
Laterza, 1932, pp. 297-341.
{*Both volumes should be used v/ith caution. The student
would be well advised to seek out articles first published
before 1925 in their original form. In any case Croce's
explicit criticism does not represent his most valuable
contribution to the study of Actual Idealism: see rather
the "comparative material" listed in Section III.]
Be Burgh, W. G.: "Gentile's Philosophy of Spirit", Journal of
Philosophical Studies, Vol. IV, no. 13 (January 1929),,
pp. 3-22.
Be Ruggiero, Guido; Modern Philosophy (translated by A. H. Hannay
and R. G. Collingwood), London, Allen and Unwin, 1921,
pp. 402.
Be Sarlo, Francesco: Gentile e_ Croce. Lettere filosofiche di
un superato. Florence, Le Monnier, 1925, pp. XII-318.
Finer, Herman: Mussolini's Italy, New York, Henry Holt and
Company, [19353, pp. 564.
Holmes, Roger W.r The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile, New York,
Macmillan, 1937, pp. xvi-2*o~4.
 446

Liguori, Ersilia: La pedagogia di Giovanni Gentile, Padua,

Editoria LivTana, 1,19511, p. 17-207. £pp. 1-16 do not
appear^
Licitra, Carmelo; La storiografia idealistica. Bal "programma"
di B. Spavenx"a alia scuola di G. "Gentile. Rome,
Be Alberti, 1925, pp. 224.
Lion, Aline A.: The Pedigree of Fascism, London, Sheed and Ward,
P-9271, pp. 23*6^
: The Idealistic Conception of Religion; Vico,
Hegel, Gentile"" Oxford, The clarendon Press, 1932,
pp. xvi—208. • -
Marraro, Howard R.r Nationalism in Italian Education, New York,
Italian Bigest and News Service, 1927, pp. xxviii-161.
: The Nev/ Education in Italy, New York,
S. F. Vanni, l"3Tb", pp. 506.
Minio-Paluello, Lorenzo: Education in Fascist Italy, London,
Oxford University Press, 1946, pp. xiv—236.
Mueller, Fernand—Lucien: La pensee contemporaine en Italie et
l'influence de HegeXT" Geneva, Albert Kundig, 1941,
pp. xx-345.
Romanell, Patrick [Pasquale Romanelli] ; The Philosophy of
Giovanni Gentile. An inquiry into"HehtiIe's conception of
Experience, New York, S. F. Vanni, 1938, pp. x-190.
Rossi, Mario M. : Review of ''G.. GENTILE, Gene si e strut fur a
della societsl1, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XLVII (195O0,
pp. 217-222. -
Smith, J. A.: "The Idealism of Giovanni Gentile", Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society, Vol. XX (1920), pp. 64-78.
Spirito, Ugo: L'idealismo italiano e_ i suoi critici, Florence,
Le Monnier, 1930, pp. 267.
Thompson, Merritt Moore: The Educational Philosophy of Giovanni
Gentile, Los Angeles, University of Southern CaTifornia
Press, 1934, pp. ix-217.
 447

Section III: Comparative Materials.

Preliminary Note
This section includes only volumes explicitly referred to
in the body of the thesis. There is a vast mass of other material
that might be added.

Carr, Herbert Wildon: Cogitans Cogitata, London, The Favil Press,

1930', pp. xii-llO"""
Croce, Benedetto: Estetica, Ninth edition revised, Bari,
Laterza, 1950, pp. XXIV—561. English translation by
Bouglas Ainslie, Second edition, London, Macmillan, 1922,
(also New York, Noonday Press Q.953D, pp. xxx—503.
Logica, Seventh edition revised, Bari,
Laterza, 1947, pp. XXIV-397. English translation by
Ainslie, London, Macmillan, 1917, pp. xxxiii-606.
: Filosofia della pratica, Sixth edition
revised, B a n , Laterza, 1950, pp. XX—393. English trans-
lation by Ainslie, London, Macmillan, 1913, pp. xxxix-591.
__^__^ : Teoria e_ storia della storiografia, Sixth
edition revised, Bari, Laterza, 1948, pp7 VIII-332.
English translation by Ainslie. London, G. G. Harrap,
(also Nev/ York, Harcourt Brace), 1921, pp. 317.
: Etica e_ politica, Third edition revised, Bari,
Laterza, 1945, pp. 415. (Translated into English piecemeal
in the following three entries).
The Conduct of Life, (translated by Arthur Livingston),
New York, Harcourt Brace, n.d., pp. xiv-326.'
Politics and Morals, (translated by Salvatore J.
Castiglione), London, Allen and Unwin, 1946, pp. 138.
An Autobiography, (translated by R. G. Collingwood),
Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1927, pp. 116.
: La storia come pensiero e come azione, Second
edition revised, Bari, Laterza, 1938", pp. VIII-329.
English translation by Sylvia Sprigge, London, Allen and
Unwin (also New York, W. W. Norton), 1941, pp. 324.
: Historical Materialism and the Economics of
Karl Marx, (translated by C. M. Meredith), London, Allen
and Unwin, 1931, pp. 188.
 44&

Croce, Benedetto: Croce, the King and the A l l i e s : E x t r a c t s from

Croce's d i a r y , July"T*5"43-June~r9T?7 T r a n s l a t e d by Sylvia
Sprigge, London, Allen and Unwin, 1950), p p . 158..
Hegel, G. W. F.': Hegel' s Philosophy of Right, translated with
notes by T. M. Knox, Oxford, TEe* Clarendon Press, 1945,
pp. xvi-382.
: Encyclopadie der philosophischen Wissenschaften,
edited by G. Lasson, Leipzig, F. Memer, 1930,
pp. LXXVI-528.
Mazzini, Guiseppe: The Duties of Man and other Essays, London,
J. M. Dent, 1WT, pp. xxxvii^27.
Mead, George H.; Mind, Self and Society, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 1934 , pp. xxxvni-400.
Mill, John Stuart: On Liberty and Considerations on Represen-
tative Government, Oxford, Blackwell, 1948, pp. lix-324.
Mussolini, Benito: "Fascismo" in Grande Enciclopedia Italiana,
Volume XIV, pp. 847-851. (English translation in Social
and Political Boctrines of Contemporary Europe, edited by
Michael Oakeshott, London, Basis Books, 1940, pp.. 164-179).
Peirce, Charles S. : The papers referred to in Chapter IX are to
be found in the Collected Papers, (Cambridge, Mass.,
Harvard University Press, 1931 ff.) as follov/s:
Volume I, sections 545-559.
Volume V, sections 213-263, 264-317, 318-357.
Rocco, Alfredo: "The Political Doctrine of Fascism", (translated
by Dino Bigongiari) in International Conciliation,
October 1926, (no. 223), pp. 393-417.
Royce, Josiah: The Philosophy of Loyalty, New York, Macmillan,
1909, pp. xiii-409.
: The Problem of Christianity, Nev/ York, Macmillan,
1913, 2 volumes, pp. xTvi-425, vi-442.
: The Hope of the Great Community, New York,
Macmillan, 1916, pp. ix-13-6.
Spaventa, Bertrando: For the relevant material see items 49 and
98 in Section I.
Sprigge, Cecil J. S.: Benedetto Croce, New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1952, pp. 64.
 449

Section IV: Miscellaneous.

This section contains a number of works to which incidental

reference has been made.

Saint Augustine: Be magistro in P'atrologiae Latinae, edited by

J.-P. Migne*"~~*Vol. 32, coll. 1193-1220.
: Be correctione Bonatistarum (Epistola CLXXXV)
in Patrologiae Latinae"" edited by J.-P. Migne, Vol. 33,
coll. 792-813.
: Be vera religione in Patrologiae Latinae,
edited by J.-P. Migne, Vol. 34, coll. 121-172.
Collingwood, Robin George: An Autobiography, London, Oxford
University Press, 193*57 pp. 167.
Lenin, Vladimir I.: The Teachings of Karl Marx, New York,
International Publishers 1933 , pp. 48.
Megaro, Gaudens: Mussolini in the Making, Boston, Houghton
Mifflin, 1938, pp. 3477
Pascal, Blaise: "Fragment d'un traite du vide" in Oeuvres,
edited by L. Brunschvigg and P. Boutroux, Paris, Hachette,
1908 ff., Volume II, pp. 127-145.
Spinoza, Benedict de: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus in Opera,
edited by J. van Vloten and J. P. N„ Land, The Hague,
1914, Volume II, pp. 83-331.
 VITA

Henry Silton Harris v/as born at Brighton, England on

April 11, 1926. He v/as educated at Hove County School and at
Lancing College.
From November 1944 until July 1945 he served in the
British Army.. In October 1945 he entered St. Edmund Hall, '
Oxford, matriculating in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores: he
received his B.-A. Begree in June 1949.
He was awarded a John C. Shaffer Fellowship in Philosophy
at Northwestern University for the academic year 1950-1951. In
1951-1952, and 1952-1953 he held Second Year and Third Year
Fellowships in Philosophy at the University of Illinois. In
September 1953 he v/as appointed to an Instructorship in the
Bepartment of Philosophy at the University of Illinois.