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S T U D I E S
A M E R I C A N

TOWARDS A
UNIFIED ITALY
I T A L I A N

Historical, Cultural, and

Literary Perspectives on
the Southern Question
A N D

salvatore dimaria
I T A L I A N
Italian and Italian American Studies

Series Editor
Stanislao G. Pugliese
Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY, USA
This series brings the latest scholarship in Italian and Italian American
history, literature, cinema, and cultural studies to a large audience of
specialists, general readers, and students. Featuring works on modern Italy
(Renaissance to the present) and Italian American culture and society by
established scholars as well as new voices, it has been a longstanding force
in shaping the evolving fields of Italian and Italian American Studies by
re-emphasizing their connection to one another.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14835
 Salvatore DiMaria

Towards a Unified
Italy
Historical, Cultural, and Literary Perspectives
on the Southern Question
Salvatore DiMaria
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN, USA

Italian and Italian American Studies

ISBN 978-3-319-90765-9    ISBN 978-3-319-90766-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90766-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018942904

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 Preface

This book is not entirely about the history of Italy. It is about the histori-
cal, cultural, and literary context that for over a century has informed and
inflamed the debate on the Question of the South or Questione del
Mezzogiorno. For over a century, the issue has pitted Northerners against
Southerners or, disparagingly, polentoni against terroni. The book begins
by discussing the 1860s annexation of the South by the North, dwells on
the major socio-economic issues that through the years have polarized the
country, and concludes with the auspicious outlook that the gap between
the two sides is beginning to close. In sum, the country is about to achieve
its much-coveted goal of uniting the Italians or, as it has been famously
stated, “making the Italians.” The analysis draws mainly on historical
events, on their fictional representation both in cinema and literature, and
on past and current newspaper reports. The reader will not fail to notice
that, though I grew up in Sicily and am still a Sicilian to the core, I have
done my best to maintain an open mind and follow the facts to whatever
conclusion they lead. I was just over 18 when I went with my entire family
to the United States in the early 1960s. The reader should also know that
I have dedicated most of my professional career to the literature of the
Italian Renaissance and that modern Italy is a fairly new field of study for
me. I was drawn to the controversy on the Question of the South only a
few years ago and by chance. As a diehard Sicilian, I could not resist the
invitation to participate in an international conference on the Questione
based on the recent and very popular book Terroni (2010) by the
Southern journalist Pino Aprile. The book stirred old memories, taking
me back to the days of my youth when the Communist party led peasant

v
vi PREFACE

demonstrations in support of the land reforms being debated in Rome.

Waving red banners and sporting red scarfs—the colors of the Italian
Communist party—men and women on horseback and mule carts staged
symbolic land occupations. They were demanding the partition and dis-
tribution of the big estates or feudi owned mostly by absent, rich land-
owners. It was the time when there was a clear socio-economic distinction
between peasantry and bourgeoisie, commonly expressed as the binary
opposition birritti vs. cappeddi. These attributes were derived from their
distinctive headgear: the peasants normally wore the birritti, or caps with
a short visor similar to British flat caps; the upper classes preferred the
cappeddi, wide-brimmed or fedora-type hats. It was also the time when
we saw friends and relatives emigrate toward mythical America or some
European countries that were rebuilding their cities and economies dev-
astated by the savagery of World War II.
We knew that in Northern Italy the newly arrived emigrants from the
South were referred to as terroni (roughly, boorish peasants), but we did
not know the full extent of the odious abuse and prejudice associated with
this label. We soon began to hear stories of landlords refusing to rent
apartments to Southern emigrants, restaurants denying them service, and
locals telling them to go back home. Such a rabid racism was revealed in
all its nakedness toward the end of the twentieth century with the birth of
the Northern League, or Lega Nord, an ultra-conservative political party
that sprung up in the northern regions of the country. Party leaders started
to give voice to a long-brewing resentment against the South, calling it a
ball and chain to the country’s economy. Some even agitated for secession
from Italy. For them, the State’s effort to help develop the Southern
economy had been a waste of precious resources because the problem,
they insisted, is endemic to the region’s culture and its people. Reviving a
prejudice first promoted by positivist anthropologists around the end of
the nineteenth century, they argued that Southerners are by nature lazy
and prone to violence. Such a virulent attack led a number of Southern
writers, most notably Pino Aprile and Antonio Ciano, to respond with a
series of books with titles such as The Massacre of the South, The Blood of the
South, The Conquest of the South, and similar other works and weblogs.
They attributed the South’s underdevelopment to the North’s 1860
“forced” annexation of the region, which completed the creation of the
Kingdom of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II. They charged that at
the time of the annexation or unification, the North stole huge amounts
of money from Southern banks. In addition, it raided the private funds of
 PREFACE
   vii

Francesco II, the deposed Bourbon king of the Southern Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies. They also denounced the new kingdom’s onerous fiscal
policies and its general neglect toward the newly conquered territory. In a
few words, they blamed the North for having conquered the South, taken
its riches, and abandoned it to a future of misery and backwardness.
As my interest in the debate grew, I found myself delving into the issue,
looking for evidence that would support claims often undocumented or
lacking credible sources. I soon became convinced that Southern activists
were reacting to the racist diatribes of the North with equally baseless
arguments or, at least, claims that were either unsubstantiated or easily
disputed. For instance, they insisted that the South had been a prosperous
kingdom under the Bourbon kings, when, in fact, it was one of the poorest
in Western Europe. They argued that under the Bourbons, public schools
allowed everyone to learn the art of reading and writing, giving even the
children of the peasantry the opportunity to have a career in public
administration or in the army. This assertion falls flat when one considers
that in 1861 only 0.86% of Southern children were enrolled in elementary
school, a proportion lower than that of every other region in the country.
By another measure, four years after the unification, 835 of 1000 male and
938 of 1000 female Southerners were illiterate. Some contended that the
brigands were heroes and patriots who defended the fatherland against the
“invading” Northern troops. In reality, most of the brigands were murders
and cutthroats. According to accounts that some brigands recall in their
autobiographies, they were the terror of the countryside. They survived in
the hills by ransacking villages and killing inhabitants who refused to hand
over money and/or jewelry. One of them wrote that he and his brigands
were feared as the scourge of God, or flagelli di Dio. Southern sympathizers
have also alleged that Garibaldi, the renowned “hero of the two worlds,”
was not a hero, but a war criminal. This charge betrays a labored attempt
to re-write history from a biased perspective, for Garibaldi was indeed a
true hero. His myth as the champion of the oppressed continues to live on
not only in Italy, but also in many parts of the Western world.
I concluded that such a biased revision of the past not only tended to
inflame an already heated debate, but also risked constructing a narrative
of the Southern identity based on facts as questionable as the ones some
Southerners wanted to discredit. The Southern cause would be better
served, I came to believe, if the South undertook an honest evaluation of
its past, acknowledged its problems, and accepted responsibility for the
many obstacles that hindered its development. Only then would it be able
viii PREFACE

to fashion a fresh and realistic image of itself, one that would counter the
denigrating version that the North has been narrating for more than a
century. Only then could the debate be elevated to a productive dialogue
that would ultimately lead to a better understanding of the issue and
inherently bring the two sides to speak as a united people of one Italy. I
therefore decided to join the debate with an article on the identity crisis of
the South, “La Questione del Mezzogiorno e la crisi identitaria del Sud,”
which was published in Italica in 2014 and later pirated by a Southern
weblog. The intent was to bring a fresh and unbiased perspective to the
discussion and, at the same time, stir it toward a more rational and
worthwhile course. In keeping with this belief, I continued with my
research, and two years later, I wrote “In difesa di Garibaldi,” which was
published in MLN and, like the other, pirated and posted on the Internet.
As I came across other contentious issues informing the debate, I decided
to write a book on the subject. Friends and colleagues both in Italy and in
the United States suggested that I write it for a readership not as partisan
as the Italian one. They convincingly argued that there are millions of
Italo-Americans eager to read about their ancestors’ past in the context of
the emigrants’ first experiences and the socio-economic reasons that led
them to emigrate in the first place and, equally important, why they chose
to go to America. Accordingly, I expanded and translated in English the
above-mentioned articles and turned them into book chapters. The first
article became the blueprint for the entire project and constitutes the
introduction to the book.
Relying on archival data, reliable scholarly research, and newspaper
reports, I focused on the much-disputed causes and conditions that gave
rise to troublesome cultural situations such as illiteracy, mass emigration,
and organized crime. I also drew from the various ways in which poets and
novelists, dramatists and filmmakers chose to put a human face on some
aspects of these events by representing them in the fictional world of their
works. The research led me to the conclusion that Garibaldi was a great
hero, that the South continued to be embarrassingly illiterate under the
new regime, and that the mafia evolved and prospered from the collusion
between the State and the criminal element. I also found that mass emigra-
tion was brought about not so much by the new kingdom’s fiscal policies
and neglect as much as by outside forces beyond State control. The
Americas attracted millions of laborers. Countries such as Brazil, Argentina,
and the United States had a great need of laborers to help in the ongoing
expansion of their industries and in settling the vast, undeveloped areas of
 PREFACE
   ix

their respective territories. Moreover, steamships began to replace the

slow-moving sailing ships, fittingly known as “coffin ships.” The bigger
and faster steamboats made ocean crossing more comfortable, less costly,
and much safer. In addition, success stories and remittances from prosper-
ous emigrants not only stirred immigration fever among the poor, but also
made it possible for them to borrow the necessary funds to pay for the
crossing. Thus immigration engendered immigration, as many joined
friends, neighbors, and relatives already settled in the New World.
But, just as I came to believe that the South needed to take ownership
of its troubled past, I became convinced that the North, too, needed to
accept its responsibility for failing to live up to its moral and political obli-
gation to “reconstruct” the region left devastated by the fight for annexa-
tion. Admittedly, the North did make some efforts to develop the South’s
economy by supporting education, reclaiming marshlands, expanding
roads and railroads, and investing in other public works. Unfortunately,
the endeavor, mostly notably the public projects funded through the Cassa
del Mezzogiorno (1950–90), did not yield the expected results. There was
no cultural framework upon which to build a sustained development.
Besides the lack of an educated labor force, there was a poor sense of civic
responsibility and a dearth of entrepreneurial mentality. It was this unfa-
vorable cultural setting that the new regime neglected to address, thus
leaving in place the oppressive socio-political system that thrived under the
Bourbons’ old kingdom. For one thing, it allowed the bourgeoisie to keep
their old privileges and continue to lord it over the masses. Local nobles
and professionals, or galantuomini, were allowed to retain control of pub-
lic institutions. This gave them the opportunity to hinder the expansion of
public education and, in some instances, stymie efforts to improve the
transport infrastructure. Such indifference toward the region’s local affairs
issued in part from the commercial, political, and social realities of the
moment. Politically, early governments needed the support of the bour-
geoisie, for only the affluent and the literate were allowed to vote.
Commercially, it made sense to favor the industrial complexes of the North
because they were relatively modern, were closer to the European markets,
and enjoyed an adequate transportation system. Socially, there were very
few literate commoners capable of holding public office.
These reasons, however valid, were hardly a good excuse for the State
to neglect the needs of the people it had promised to deliver from the
illiberal Bourbon regime. But, while some accuse the new regime of fla-
grant indifference toward the “conquered” territory, others argue that
x PREFACE

there were not sufficient resources to deal with the many problems that
usually overwhelm a fledgling country. Having emerged from the costly
Crimean War (1853–56), the armed conflict for the annexation of the
South (1860–61), and three wars of independence (1848–66), young
Italy was too financially strapped to invest in the South in a meaningful
way. But the lack-of-funds rationale is more of a pretext than a justification.
The actual reason for the neglectful attitude toward the South was rooted
in the social bias and political expediency that forestalled public instruction
and the transportation infrastructure, the very essentials for economic
growth. For instance, the State’s decision to fund secondary education
and practically ignore elementary instruction was politically motivated. In
essence, the policy was meant to prepare a new generation of leaders
mostly from the privileged classes. Government leaders were careful not to
bolster mass education for fear of alienating the local galantuomini, their
reliable constituents. From national public officials down to local
authorities, they were all averse to popular instruction on the grounds that
it could disseminate revolutionary ideas among the masses. Sadly, this
political caution led the State to forsake its obligation to care for the
people it had annexed, leaving them in the same wretched conditions in
which it had found them.
Facts and figures notwithstanding, neither the North nor the South has
appeared willing to accept its share of responsibility for the events that
fueled the socio-economic disparity between their respective region. This
reluctance has seriously hindered the country’s efforts to achieve the uni-
fication it has been pursuing since 1860. At that time, a Northern diplo-
mat reminded the new nation’s king, Victor Emmanuel, that having made
Italy, “now we must make the Italians.” The reminder underscored the
fact that the Italians, tough now politically united, were still divided by
culture, regional loyalties, and language barriers. But while the rancorous
debate remains stuck in the past with its worn-out recriminations,
significant events are bringing this much-coveted and elusive goal within
reach. Illiteracy in the South has practically disappeared as improved
transportation infrastructure allows for easy travel for pleasure or business,
and industry, especially agriculture and tourism, keeps on growing at a
healthy pace. Not least, most Italians now speak a common language,
forsaking the local dialects of their grandparents. Moreover, outside forces,
such as immigration, digital technology, the European Union, and global
commercial realities are driving a cultural and economic transformation
that is obliterating past differences. Notably, it is rendering the conten-
 PREFACE
   xi

tious debate virtually irrelevant. Today’s Italy is poised to bridge the cen-
tury-old divide between North and South and finally “make” the Italians.
If some Italians do not share this optimistic outlook, it is because they are
too immersed in their daily realities to see that the country is shedding
some of its most undesirable cultural traits. Looking in from the outside,
one can see that the country is slowly moving, as one united people,
toward establishing itself as a modern society and as an economic power
ready to compete in world markets.
I am aware that my conclusion may not please everyone, especially
those who continue to rehash old arguments and stir partisan tendencies.
But I am optimistic that many readers will welcome my fact-based approach
to the cultural, economic, historical, and political circumstances that
caused the country to split apart. They will also appreciate the reasoned
argument that internal reforms and global pressures are driving Italy
toward the real unification of its peoples and, in the process, making it a
stronger economic power. Colleagues and friends who have followed the
laborious progress of this manuscript have encouraged me to bring it to a
conclusion. In their view, the argument needed to be made and readers,
especially those still free of partisan influence, must be given the opportu-
nity to read a documented and balanced perspective of the issues that have
torn the country’s cultural fiber. With this audience in mind, I have tried
to make the text reader friendly by keeping foreign-language quotations to
a minimum. In most instances, I paraphrase the source and cite it in the
notes. When necessary, I report the entire quotation in the notes. Unless
otherwise indicated, all translations into English are my own.
I must acknowledge here that I owe so much to those who in one way
or another helped me in bringing this project to its conclusion. Although
they are too many to mention by name, I would be amiss if I did not
express my most sincere gratitude to my dearest friends and colleagues
Rocco Mario Morano and Christopher Craig. They gave so much of their
time and sound advice that I do not believe I would have been able to
complete the work without their generous support. Chris Craig in
particular never held back his critique of my style and arguments, nor did
he ever tire of reading each chapter over and over, helping to clean up
mistakes and make the book presentable. Of course, if he deserves the
credit for all the advice and guidance, I must take the blame for all the
mistakes and missteps that the reader will inevitably find in the book.

Knoxville, TN Salvatore DiMaria

 Contents

1 Introduction: The Southern Question   1

The Debate   3
The Bourbon Regime  11
Illiteracy Before and After the Unification  14
The Plebiscite  16
North and South Share Responsibility  18
The Chapters  20

2 In Defense of Garibaldi  29

Garibaldi: Anti-Catholic or Anti-Clerical?  30
Garibaldi was Neither a Thief nor a War Criminal  33
Did Garibaldi Betray or Inspire the Masses?  40
Garibaldi’s Administration of the South  42
Garibaldi: World Hero  44
The Garibaldian Myth and Human Dignity  48

3 Brigands: Criminals or Patriots?  55

Brigands and Folklore  56
Causes of Banditry  60
The Surge  67
Were Brigands Criminals or Patriots?  77
The Waning of Brigandage  80

xiii
xiv Contents

4 The Underdeveloped South  85

Illiteracy and the Ruling Class  86
The Oppressive Yoke of Illiteracy  89
The Elites’ Fear of Educating the Plebs  94
Racial Prejudice and Illiteracy  97
Illiteracy as the Source of Socio-Economic Problems 102

5 Emigration 111
Background 112
The Southern Economy Before the Unification 114
Impact of Liberist Policies 118
Economic Setbacks 121
Time to Emigrate 123
Emigration Engenders Emigration 128

6 Italy’s Scourge: The Four Mafias 139

Camorra 142
Mafia 148
’Ndrangheta 159
Sacra Corona Unita 163
Is the Mob on the Run? 165

7 A Failed Reconstruction 173

Education 174
The Justice System 182
The Transportation Infrastructure and the Economy 186

8 Toward Making the Italians 201

The State’s Efforts to Improve the Southern Economy 205
Education as the Foundation of Economic Growth 209
The Crushing Weight of Bureaucracy 212
Removing the Millstone 216
The War Against Corruption and Organized Crime 220
Toward Making the Italians 224

Works Cited 229

Index 249
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Giuseppe Garibaldi. Source: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo
Library/Alamy Stock Photo 30
Fig. 3.1 Salvatore Giuliano. Source: INTERFOTO/Alamy Stock Photo 63
Fig. 3.2 The brigand chief Luigi Alonzi, alias Chiavone. Source: Paul
Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo 66
Fig. 3.3 Carmine Crocco. Source: Realy Easy Star/Alamy Stock Photo 75
Fig. 4.1 Carusi in the sulfur mines. Courtesy of Marcello Frangiamone 92
Fig. 5.1 Steamship. Source: Paul Fearn/Alamy Stock Photo 126
Fig. 5.2 Railroad advertisement. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical
Society129
Fig. 5.3 A farm out west. Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical
Society130

xv
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Southern Question

This study advances the long-running debate on the Southern Question

that has bitterly divided Italy between a rich North and an underdevel-
oped South, or Mezzogiorno.1 More specifically, it strives to tell the story
of how Northern and Southern Italy were politically unified into one State
and why its peoples remained divided both culturally and economically.
Since 1860, when the Kingdom of Italy was first created following the
annexation of the South, cultural rifts, regional factionalism, and toxic
prejudice have torn the country apart. Though linked by history and
geography, nineteenth-century Italy was a patchwork of diverse peoples
who were fiercely loyal to their respective regions and spoke dialects unin-
telligible to outsiders. Pointedly, the Northern statesman Massimo
D’Azeglio, on congratulating King Victor Emmanuel II on the unification
of Italy, reportedly remarked that having made Italy, “we must now make
the Italians.” This task proved stubbornly elusive, as resentment and
recrimination exacerbated the rift. The gap grew ever wider as each side
bolstered its position with its own version of the past and began to hurl
libelous charges and epithets to the other. Northern Italians saw their
Southern counterparts as lazy, boorish, and prone to crime. The South, in
turn, accused the North of having forcibly annexed it and destroyed its
prosperity. Truth and understanding has often been the first casualty of
this antagonism. This is due in part to the myriad of books and movies on
cultural phenomena, such as emigration and organized crime. Their par-
ticular perspectives and conclusions have muddled the debate and, in some

© The Author(s) 2018 1

S. DiMaria, Towards a Unified Italy, Italian and Italian American
Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90766-6_1
2 S. DIMARIA

instances, stoked animosity. This book, based on careful research into the
central elements of Italian culture and history that are deployed by both
sides in the debate, strives to show a more realistic and comprehensive
picture of the roles that both North and South played in creating modern
Italy. In doing so, it takes issue with those who persist in seeing Italy as a
divided society mired hopelessly in crime and corruption and offers,
instead, a cautiously optimistic view of a country that is poised to shed its
negative reputation, overcome its divisive past, and finally “make the
Italians.”
Arguments fueling the present debate often rest on preconceived per-
spectives of the historical events that led to the annexation and to the rise
of the parties’ vexed relationship. The facts, data, and scholarship driving
my analysis help to zoom in on the actual causes that created and contin-
ued to stoke the controversy. Accordingly, I begin by placing the parties’
respective arguments in their rightful cultural and historical context, thus
stripping them of bias and assigning blame where it lies. I find that the
fault lies in part with the failure of the North (the Kingdom of Italy) to
fulfill its moral obligation to reconstruct the region it had destabilized by
forcefully annexing it, and in part with the Southern elite’s aversion to
changes that might have placed the South on a path of socio-economic
development. The discussion leads to the cautiously optimistic conclusion
that the debate is losing momentum as the country is becoming ever more
homogeneous. In fact, it is beginning to address in earnest some of the
issues that fostered the old animosity, most notably infrastructure and
organized crime. This development is largely the result of the great pres-
sure arising from the confluence of internal and external forces.
Immigration, globalization, and digital technology are forcing cultural
changes and legislative reforms that in the past the establishment lacked
the political courage to support. Bureaucratic and social reforms are begin-
ning to show their positive impact on the country’s socio-economic spec-
trum. These developments support the notion that Italy is becoming a
truly unified nation, a goal that has eluded the country’s leaders since
1860.
The book begins with a discussion of dubious claims about events that
led to the 1860 annexation, progresses to an overview of major cultural
and economic issues, and ends with an analysis of present-day Italy. It does
not dwell on detailed accounts of incidents and personages already
­extensively treated by a vast scholarship both in Italian and in various other
languages. Instead, it focuses on the causes and effects of phenomena with
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 3

great social significance, such as illiteracy, emigration, justice or lack

thereof, and collusion between the State and the criminal element. The
discussion takes into account archival evidence, economic data, newspaper
reports, and relevant past and present scholarship. It also draws on the
manner in which poets and novelists, dramatists and filmmakers, chose to
portray selected historical facts and characters in the fictional world of
their works. These include renowned authors such as Verga, Capuana,
Pirandello, De Roberto, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Levi, Sciascia, Camilleri,
and other less-known writers. In some cases, the analysis includes filmic
dramatizations of notorious individuals or spectacular events such as the
film Il giorno di San Sebastiano, a faithful representation of the 1893
Caltavuturo massacre, and Rosi’s Salvatore Giuliano. This 1962
documentary-­style movie deals with the famed bandit’s bloody exploits
and the collusion between the State and the mafia in post-World War II
Sicily. In the last section, the discussion relies mostly on contemporary
data and reports gleaned from major newspapers and magazines, includ-
ing La Repubblica, Il corriere della sera, The Economist, The New York
Times, and The Journal of American History.

The Debate
The debate has its roots in the 1860s unification of Italy with its capital in
Turin under King Victor Emmanuel II of the House of Savoy, previously
King of Sardinia and Piedmont. The first hints of the controversy appeared
in the negative impressions that Northern officials had of the Southerners
at the time of the annexation. General Enrico Cialdini, one of the com-
manders of the Northern forces in the South, thought that the Bedouins
of Africa were “milk and honey” compared with the Southern “boors.” As
far as the Garibaldian general Nino Bixio was concerned, the Southerners
should all be sent to Africa to be civilized. The unification also unsettled
Massimo D’Azeglio, who feared that merging with the Neapolitans was
like sleeping with lepers.2 Others described the region as “a sort of Affrica
[with two f’s] populated by uncivilized tribes that had no honor and no
ideals” (Del Boca, 98). The issue took on a scientific veneer at the end of
the nineteenth century when positivist anthropologists bolstered these
negative views with their findings and theories. Anthropologists led by the
Veronese Cesare Lombroso found “unmistakable” evidence that the
Southerners were of an inferior race. They argued that the cranial mea-
surements taken from some Southern outlaws revealed that Southerners in
4 S. DIMARIA

general exhibited residual characteristics of a primitive race and were, thus,

incapable of assimilating civilized living standards. For them, the
Southerners would always remain predisposed to criminal violence and
devoid of any strong civic and moral sense. These assumptions earned
credence not only in Northern Italy, but also abroad. In the United States,
for instance, discrimination against Southern Italian emigrants during the
late 1800s and well into the nineteenth century became so pervasive that
many suffered unspeakable indignities and, in some instances, physical
violence.
Southern scholars and politicians challenged the positivists’ theories.
They argued that one must look for the cause of the South’s underdevel-
opment not in specious sciences like craniology, but in the region’s culture
and history. Dismissing the findings as anthropological tales, or “romanzi
antropologici,” the Sicilian Member of Parliament Napoleone Colajanni
attributed the South’s backwardness to centuries of feudal vassalage. He
insisted that the South was not the cursed race, or “razza maledetta,” that
the anthropologists made it out to be, but a people capable of emancipa-
tion once outside the environment that oppressed it. He invited his oppo-
nents to think of the economic, social, and political successes that many
Southern emigrants had achieved abroad.3 The Southerner’s backward-
ness, he concluded, was not the logical manifestation of a primitive nature,
but the inevitable outcome of an oppressive social system. The Sicilian
novelist Tomasi di Lampedusa made a similar argument in his Il gattopardo
(1958), which takes place during the 1860 annexation. The novel’s main
character, Don Fabrizio, Prince of Salina, expounding on the Sicilian
ethos, tells his Piedmontese guest, Chevalley, that the Sicilians can be
emancipated if they are taken out of their stifling environment at a very
young age, “molto giovani” (213). The Members of Parliament Franchetti
and Sonnino, the two Tuscan scholars who in 1876 ventured on foot and
on horseback through the Sicilian hinterland, described the area’s oppres-
sive environment in their report. They found a wretched people living in
a state of semi-slavery. In their words, the people, mostly peasants, were
illiterate, lived in abject poverty, and were tyrannized by abusive feudal
traditions still practiced by the professional and propertied classes.4
The debate was left smoldering as the country’s attention turned to
more pressing realities, notably World War I and Mussolini’s dictatorship
(1922–43). It re-emerged in the 1950s, when the country witnessed a
great exodus from the unproductive farms of the rural South to the
humming factories of the North. The Northerners viewed the uncouth
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 5

emigrants with contempt, called them boors, or terun (dialect for ter-
roni), and in many instances refused them lodging or employment. But
it was in the 1990s, with the birth of the new political party Northern
League, or Lega Nord, that the controversy flared up with unprece-
dented virulence. In need of a political identity, the League’s ideologues
chose to define their party by recalling their region’s glorious past. The
word Lega is, in fact, an obvious evocation of the celebrated Lega di
Legnano, the historical coalition of the Lombard communes that
defeated the Emperor Barbarossa in the twelfth century. But for the pro-
moters of the movement, the memory of the heroic past was not enough.
It was also necessary to define the party in a context that would speak to
the present. In other words, they were in search of an identity that was
also current and relevant. Accordingly, they chose to focus on the con-
trast between South and North: the first, backward, lazy, terun, and
criminal or mafioso; the second, just the opposite: industrious, entrepre-
neurial, and civic-minded. And so they, the elected race of the civilized
and the industrious, distinguished themselves from the “cursed race” or
razza maledetta. Their diatribes against the South encouraged their fol-
lowers, known as leghisti, to indulge in abominable cheers such as “Go
earthquake!” or “Forza Terremoto!” while residents of L’Aquila, a city
in Abbruzzo, perished under the rubble of the 2009 devastating earth-
quake. Others, cheering “Go Etna! Go Vesuvius!” or “Forza Etna, Forza
Vesuvio!”, invoked the volcanic destruction of the entire South. At the
2015 conference on women in business that took place in Milan, appro-
priately called “From Puglia to Milan,” the delegation from Puglia was
“welcomed” by a big sign that read “TERUN.”5 Similarly, Northern
soccer fans often sang hateful songs against their Neapolitan rivals. In
one particular tune, they chanted that Neapolitans never wash and that
their stench is so bad that even the dogs run away.6
The South’s response to the League’s attacks came in an avalanche of
inflammatory media weblogs and a series of books and conferences. They
all condemned the racist North and commemorated the Kingdom of the
Two Sicilies, which the Bourbon dynasty had ruled for over a century
prior to the 1860 annexation. In his Terroni, Pino Aprile observed that
since 2001 there had been more than 700 conferences and a large number
of new weekly and monthly publications (290). In these forums, the
Northerners of today and the Piedmontese of the Risorgimento (roughly
the three decades following the unification) were attacked with the same
zeal that inspired leghista racism. Many attributed the South’s underdevel-
6 S. DIMARIA

opment to the Piedmontese troops who invaded the Mezzogiorno, plun-

dered its resources, and abandoned it to a future of backwardness and
injustice. They concentrated their attack on two major fronts: one of self-­
celebration, the other of denunciation. The first laid claim to the high
culture of the South, where people lived comfortably before the annexa-
tion; the second blamed the North for the devastation it wrought on the
region. The activist Antonio Ciano became the front and center of this
offensive with his book I Savoia e il massacro del Sud (1996), a point of
reference for other Southern apologists.7 He recalled with pride that
before the unification a flourishing industry in the South competed in
European markets, winning prizes in exhibitions in London and Paris.
The first Italian railroad was inaugurated in 1839 under King Ferdinand
II, and powerful ship engines were built at the shipyard of Castellammare
di Stabia on the Neapolitan coast. The kingdom’s many shipyards, Ciano
declared, were renowned all over the world and provided jobs for thou-
sands of workers (81).8 He praised the South’s public education, especially
that of ancient Sicily, where Pythagoras and Archimedes taught. He also
noted that under the Bourbons higher education was a priority, pointing
to the excellence of the University of Palermo and the schools and acade-
mies in the city of Naples.
The controversy became as widespread as it was emotionally over-
heated. People with access to the Internet could easily express their
opinions and vent their resentments. Views posted on weblogs were
often colored with accusations and preconceptions that were easily con-
testable and frequently vulgar. A cursory glance at websites sponsored by
Northern or Southern activists revealed the scurrilous language with
which one side insulted the other. The populist tone of the controversy,
besides reducing the debate to a street-like squabble, widened the gap
between the two regions and gave rise to secessionist movements. The
Venetian League, or Liga Veneta, one of the earliest separatist parties
organized in the early 1970s, periodically held demonstrations proclaim-
ing its independence from Italy. In 1997, local militants drove a tank
into Venice and hoisted their flag on St. Mark’s bell tower. In 2003 the
party held an online symbolic referendum on whether the region should
secede from Italy. A 1996 poll conducted by the Northern League found
that for the majority of those interviewed separation was both financially
advantageous and socially desirable. Among other things, they expressed
outrage at the excessive waste of public funds allocated to a South beset
by cultural degradation and widespread collusion between politicians
and organized crime. They viewed the South as the country’s ball and
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 7

chain and demanded a revision of the fiscal code that would return to
their region a larger share of the taxes it sent to the State. Lorenzo Del
Boca, in his 2011 Polentoni (the title is a derogative term applied to
Northern peasants who eat polenta or cornmeal), citing a 2007 study,
noted that every year the North “writes a check of 50 billion Euro for
the rest of Italy.” Reflecting the general mood of many Northerners, he
called the amount “too much … too large a commitment … a dispro-
portionate ‘bribe’” (48). Southerners were equally passionate in advo-
cating secession. The weblog Movimento Neoborbonico, for example,
agitated for the return of the splendor that characterized the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies before the annexation. Marco Esposito’s 2013 book
Separiamoci (‘Let’s Separate’) premised that an independent South
would have the opportunity to show the world its ability to reconnect
with the past and duplicate its scientific and industrial feats.9 In addition
to calling for separation, Southern apologists continue to insist on ade-
quate compensation for all the harm the region suffered under the com-
mercial, fiscal, and industrial policies of the conquering North.
Demands for reparations continue to strike a chord among Southern
activists or meridionalisti. Their calculations factor in everything from the
new regime’s unfair taxation and fiscal policies to the Piedmontese raids of
several Southern banks and to the troops’ bloody retaliations on innocent
civilians. They point to the 1861 massacres at Pontelandolfo and Casalduni
as two of the most abominable acts of revenge. In both instances, enraged
and unrestrained Northern troops first demolished the residential areas
and then proceeded to the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent residents.10
Southerners also ask for the return of the riches that the invading
Piedmontese stole from the personal patrimony of Francesco II, the
dethroned ruler of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. They charge that the
Turin government invested the loot in Northern industries and infrastruc-
ture. The Roman politician Emilio Sereni, writing around the end of
World War II, complained that the North’s industrialization was accom-
plished at the expense of the South, which was seen as a colony to be
exploited (311). As if the plunder was not enough, the meridionalisti
complain, the government’s policies continued to favor the industrial
expansion of the North, neglecting Southern industries altogether. Pino
Aprile points out that from 1860 to 1998, the State spent 400 times less
in Campania than it did in the Venetian region (121). Nor is it by chance,
he argues, that today’s transportation infrastructure—streets, harbors, air-
ports, roads, and railroads—is from 30 to 60% as large as that of the North
8 S. DIMARIA

(156). From the North’s perspective, however, this data becomes relevant
only if one considers that at the time of the unification the Northern trans-
portation infrastructure was far more developed than that of the South. As
the Piedmontese Giorgio Bocca made clear in his 1992 L’inferno, the
North had 67,000 kilometers of roads, whereas the South had only
15,000 kilometers. In comparing the infrastructures of the two regions,
Bocca pointed out, one should keep in mind that in the South goods were
still transported by donkey, on men’s shoulders, or on women’s heads.
Below the city of Salerno, he observed, there was not even a kilometer of
railroad (268).
Even if, as Bocca rightly insisted, the rapid development of the North
was not accomplished with the resources purloined from the South, it can-
not be denied that the State’s indifference allowed the conquered territory
to languish in the misery brought on by centuries of feudal abuses. In their
1876 report, Franchetti and Sonnino accused the government of negli-
gence and/or incompetence regarding the problems of the Mezzogiorno.
They concluded that the country’s political leaders were impeding the
region’s cultural transformation. In their view, the government had wit-
tingly or unwittingly legalized enduring oppression while guaranteeing
impunity for the oppressor.11 Around the end of the century, the Sicilian
author and politician Luigi Capuana, writing about the early days of the
unification, chastised the government for its lack of interest in the affairs of
Sicily. He charged that the Northern functionaries assigned to the island
were incompetent and that the government sent them there in order to get
rid of them, “per sbarazzarsene” (La Sicilia, 44). About two decades later,
Pirandello had one of the characters in his I vecchi e i giovani (1909) com-
plain that the North had sent its bureaucratic rejects (“scarti burocratici”)
to administer the South (89). In 1920, the Marxist politician Antonio
Gramsci, writing for the leftist newspaper Avanti!, penned “Il lanzo ubri-
aco,” a diatribe against Italy’s conservative governments that for decades
put the entire South to fire and sword. Before the liberals gained control of
the government in 1876, he noted, the State favored the propertied classes
while imposing a vicious dictatorship on the Southern masses, “crucifying,
dismembering, and burying alive many poor farmers.”12
Official indifference toward the South turned to open discrimination
under Mussolini, as evinced in the distribution of the reclaimed lands of
the Pontine Marshes, or Agro Pontino, a few miles southeast of Rome. In
1931, the veterans’ organization known as Opera Nazionale Combattenti
was authorized to assign thousands of hectares of reclaimed land almost
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 9

exclusively to farmers from Northern regions. Antonio Pennacchi drama-

tized this preferential policy in his historical novel Canale Mussolini
(2010). The narrator, a Northern peasant by the name of Perruzzi,
remembers how in the space of three years, 30 thousand people, ten thou-
sand each year, were brought down from the North. From Veneto, Friuli,
and the Ferrara area, people were brought to the South to live among
“foreigners,” namely Southerners who spoke another language, that is,
regional dialect. The Southerners called them polentoni or, worse yet,
Cispadani, another name for nasty Northerners. A little further ahead in
the story, Peruzzi recalls how thousands of Northerners were transported
and transplanted to the South like a Biblical army. They were to become
owners of the reclaimed farmlands. Naturally, local farmers viewed them as
usurpers and called them land thieves, “ladri di poderi.” The land belonged
to them, the locals argued, for not only was the Pontino their native area,
but also they had done most of the reclaiming work, albeit as paid labor-
ers. The ensuing animosity led to fist fights and racist name-calling. The
Northerners were called Cispadani, and the Southerners were referred to
as boorish Moroccans, “bruti marocchini” (137, 238).
It is clear that as long as the North–South controversy remains stuck on
accusations and protests, it will not be possible to reach edifying conclu-
sions. The Mezzogiorno needs to strengthen its position with an identity
that, drawing on close and conscientious examination of the past, will
allow it to confront its problems. This identity would also embolden it to
enter the debate as an equal, with its head held high. As early Southern
activists like Colajanni and Salvemini warned, it was essential to retrace the
tortuous road of history to understand how and why we arrived at today’s
predicaments.13 This task may be accomplished only if scholars engage in
a serious and objective revision of the Risorgimento instead of nursing old
resentments and reviving worn-out clichés. Unfortunately, some activists
continue to challenge, often with tendentious allegations, the official ver-
sion of the events that led to the unification, its aftermath, and the pro-
tagonists who made it happen. They insist that the South was staunchly
against annexation, which they consider a blatant usurpation of the
Bourbons’ rightful throne and a naked territorial grab engineered by the
North with the support of foreign powers. They are particularly intent on
reducing the celebrated status of the “heroes” of the unification, including
Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, Garibaldi, Crispi, and other less prominent
leaders. The true heroes, they contend, are not these individuals, but the
victims of the armed invasion. They argue that victorious generals are not
10 S. DIMARIA

the only ones who make history, for victims of war, too, make victims
make history. For Colajanni, a true hero was the deaf-mute Antonio
Cappello, who, during Garibaldi’s invasion of the South, was tortured for
“refusing” to answer the recruiters’ questions. Believing that he was feign-
ing his physical handicap to avoid induction into the military, the recruit-
ers burned him with a hot iron. They hoped that he would scream from
the pain and give away his “scheme.” In Colajanni’s view, the young tai-
lor’s ordeal makes history in that it helped to reveal and record for poster-
ity the troops’ brutality (La Sicilia, 22). For many modern activists, true
heroes are also the brigands who defended their “beloved” kingdom
against a rapacious and bloodthirsty invader.
Meridionalisti must be careful not to pursue the pedestrian presentism
that remakes the past and buttresses their claims. They must keep in mind
that the noble intent of retracing the footsteps of history can be obtained
only by resisting the temptation to garnish it with a cloak of alleged past
glory. Tomasi di Lampedusa’s Don Fabrizio highlights the irony of this
tendency as he observes that the Sicilians, though oppressed for centuries
by multiple foreign powers, claim to be the heirs of an “imperial” past that
gives them the right to great honors or, in his words, “funerali sontuosi”
(217). The Calabrian novelist Corrado Alvaro exhorted Southern intel-
lectuals to forgo claims of futile ancient splendors and engage, instead, in
a frank and rigorous evaluation of the facts. He specifically warned them
against taking “refuge” in the mythical world of the classics and clinging
to an illusory past (“nel classico e nel passato,” Un treno, 164). They must
also avoid the temptation to construct arguments on slapdash claims. The
notion that the South enjoyed a vibrant economy under the Bourbons, for
instance, flies in the face of the lack of infrastructure that continues to
hinder the South even today. The assertion that Southern education was
flourishing under the Bourbons is equally unfounded in view of the unusu-
ally high rate of illiteracy. The charge of war criminal leveled against
Garibaldi is emotionally charged and completely without merit. The idea
that the brigands fighting the Piedmontese troops in the early1860s were
“patriots” does not stand up against their criminal past and the brutalities
they perpetrated on the very people they were supposedly defending.
Equally gratuitous is the allegation that the economic hardship brought
onto the territory by the unification forced Southerners to emigrate en
masse. Activists must abstain from these and similar debatable positions
and accept instead the South’s share of responsibility for its woes. A large
share of the blame must be assigned to the ruling bourgeoisie for allowing
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 11

criminality to flourish in their midst and for resisting the expansion of

public education both before and after the unification. All told, activists
must begin to acknowledge that the Bourbon South was poor, underde-
veloped, enslaved, and not as cultured and prosperous as some have
claimed.

The Bourbon Regime

One of the claims that can be easily contested is the suggestion that
Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies (1830–1859), was an enlightened
ruler. Unquestionably, the kingdom saw significant development under
his long reign. Some of the accomplishments include the installation of
telegraphic connections between Naples and Palermo, the first railroad
built in Italy, and the first steamship. Owned by the Sicilian brothers De
Pace, the steamship Sicilia was in 1854 the first Italian vessel to reach
New York. However, Ferdinand cannot be credited with this naval feat, for
the ship was not built in the kingdom, but in the shipyard of the Thomson
brothers in Glasgow. As for the railroad, which in 1839 connected Naples
to Portici, it too was built by a foreigner, the French Armand Bayard de la
Vingtrie. A modern historian, downplaying the importance of the six-­
mile-­long railway, notes that it was built more for dynastic pride and per-
sonal security than commercial use (Duggan 103). Southern sympathizers
have also claimed that Ferdinand was popular with the business commu-
nity, thanks in part to his protectionist policies that shielded local industry
from outside competition. In his 2012 study of the kingdom’s economy
under the Bourbons, the Neapolitan Gennaro De Crescenzo estimated
that there were over 5000 factories around the Neapolitan area. He did
not make clear how many of these “fabbriche” were actually small=time
operations with two or three family members working from home. He
also asserted that the king supported local manufacturers by giving out
prizes and royal awards for creative and practical inventions. Evoking a
long-held view that in 1860 the Southern kingdom was well positioned
for a sound economic revival, he insisted that the realm’s many factories
and entrepreneurs enjoyed a flourishing economy. The South, he con-
cluded, needed only to recover the cultural and economic ingenuity that
it lost as a result of the forced annexation (Le industrie, 19, 159).14
This enthusiastic assessment contrasts sharply with the bleak observa-
tions by several nineteenth-century Southern economists such as Antonio
Scialoia and Francesco Saverio Nitti. Comparing the economy and the
12 S. DIMARIA

infrastructure of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with that of Piedmont

in the North, the Neapolitan Scialoia (1817–77) noted that in Piedmont
a traveler could easily find lodging in most villages. In the Southern hin-
terland one might travel for three or four days without ever finding accom-
modations. On the fifth day, he warned, only God knows what you might
run into (119–20). The Calabrian Nitti, writing around the turn of the
nineteenth century, observed that Naples, though for centuries the center
of a great closed commercial market, was not a rich city because the South
had never been rich, “mai ricco.”15 One of the reasons for the deplorable
state of the Southern economy may be found in Ferdinand’s aversion to
financial risk taking. He was reluctant to approve charter applications to
open banks in areas outside Naples because he considered banking a risky
business. He reminded would-be bankers that their unfamiliarity with the
science of finances would lead to excessive lending and ultimate personal
ruin. Eventually, he feared, they would find themselves buried under
mountains of unpaid loans, or cambiali. Such uneasiness with matters
financial was also the reason why a project to build a much-needed rail-
road to connect the city of Brindisi to Naples was never realized. Proposed
by an enterprising engineer by the name of Melisurgo, the project was
originally approved, but royal indifference and local apathy allowed it to
fail miserably. Another proposal for the construction of a railroad connect-
ing the capital city with the papal territory also fell by the wayside largely
through the king’s dread of financial risks. Undoubtedly, this unduly cau-
tious mindset helped to discourage the development of an entrepreneurial
culture, the driving force of sustained economic growth. Ferdinand’s
parochial outlook, writes the Neapolitan historian Antonio Ghirelli, fated
the kingdom to enduring economic underdevelopment and crippling
political isolation (230).
Antonio Ciano, in his defense of Ferdinand, complained that third-rate
intellectuals tried to obscure the king’s enlightened greatness and benevo-
lence (79). The complaint is hardly justified when one considers the vio-
lence with which the Bourbon ruler suppressed the liberal uprisings that
started in Sicily in 1837, spread to other areas of the kingdom, and culmi-
nated in the revolution of 1848. Also, why would his subjects give him the
nickname “King Bomb,” or Re Bomba, were it not for the bombardments
with which he reduced Messina to rubble? Ferdinand often made use of
his ferocious foreign mercenaries, for the most part Swiss and Hungarian
soldiers, to suppress popular unrest like the bloody revolt of 1849 in
Catania. After the 1849 re-taking of rebellious Sicily, Ferdinand’s repres-
 INTRODUCTION: THE SOUTHERN QUESTION 13

sive measures sent scores of political dissidents to prisons. They also drove
the cream of the Sicilian intelligentsia to leave the island for safer and more
tolerant countries. Pirandello captured the reality of this exodus in I vecchi
e i giovani. In the story’s background looms large the figure of the patri-
arch Gerlando Laurentano, the old general who was forced into exile after
the failure of the 1848 revolution, of which he had been one of the lead-
ers.16 Tomasi di Lampedusa dramatized the regime’s police-state atmo-
sphere in Il gattopardo. Don Fabrizio, lamenting the dearth of good books
for his family to read, faults the oppressive Bourbon censorship for keep-
ing Sicily in the dark about the great novels circulating in Europe, espe-
cially those by Dickens, Flaubert, and Dumas (173–74). Naples was also
condemned abroad for the abject conditions of its prisons. William
Gladstone, the British statesman who denounced the cruelty of the
crowded Bourbon prisons, called the regime “the negation of God erected
into a system of Government” (1.6). More recently, the British scholar
Tom Behan characterized Ferdinand as a total autocrat so distrustful of
innovation that he even banned “the introduction of the first cameras into
the city” (12).
Perhaps the most damning indictment of Ferdinand came from those
who lived under his rule. The Franco-Italian scholar Marco Monnier, writ-
ing in the early 1860s, observed that the king feared the masses and
refused to educate them; feared the power of science and prohibited it in
his territories; feared the press and repressed it; feared progress and
stopped it at the borders.17 The Southern Deputy Giuseppe Massari, in his
May 1863 report to the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, argued that
Ferdinand’s regime was the root cause of all the evils plaguing the entire
South. Although abject poverty was the primary cause of the people’s suf-
fering, he noted, poverty alone could not have been responsible for the
wretched misery and backwardness in which the North found the terri-
tory. Aside from poverty, other social woes were allowed to fester under
the Bourbon regime, most notably illiteracy and the total lack of faith in
the justice system. He added that Ferdinand’s major crime was not limited
to the thousands of men he executed, locked in prisons, and sent to the
galleys or into exile. His most nefarious legacy was to stifle the sense of
right and wrong in the entire population. Hungry for power, he did not
care if his kingdom was a desert, as long as he ruled over it; he did not care
if his throne stood on pillars of iniquity, fraud, and greed, as long as he sat
on it. His long and pernicious reign was a permanent brigandage practiced
on the right of ownership, honesty, and morality. Ferdinand’s long and
14 S. DIMARIA

calamitous reign was, in Massari own words, “un brigantaggio perman-

ente contro il più sacro diritto di proprietà, quello della onestà: contro la
più preziosa prerogativa della vita delle nazioni, la morale” (24–25).

Illiteracy Before and After the Unification

Another aspect of the Bourbon regime that deserves a closer look is the
dismal level of public instruction. Southern revisionists, complaining
about the deplorable state of education after the unification, have referred
with pride to the high cultural level that the defunct kingdom enjoyed
before the annexation. In a tone veiled with nostalgia, Ciano writes that
under the Bourbons, public schools allowed everyone (“tutti”) to learn
the art of reading and writing, giving the children of the peasantry access
to public offices, a career in the army, and a heightened awareness of indi-
vidual liberty and independence. After 1810, Ciano notes, free primary
schools were instituted in every community at the expense of local admin-
istrations. Naples and Palermo boasted renowned academies and universi-
ties, where the new generations of lawyers, state employees, and military
officers were trained.18 However true these claims might be, it is quite a
stretch to allege that the opportunities presented themselves to “every-
one,” including peasant children, most of whom never attended elemen-
tary school. Even at a very young age, many of these children were destined
to years of indentured apprenticeships. Scores were sent to work in the
fields or in the sulfur mines to help support their families. If the hard life
of the fields or the mines left them with little energy for learning, the lack
of roads made it practically impossible for them to reach the few and dis-
tant schoolhouses. It should be added that in most cases these so-called
schools consisted of a tiny room equipped with a small table for the
instructor and the seats that the students brought with them whenever
they managed to attend. In addition, teachers were barely trained and too
poorly paid to be effective instructors. The historian Rosario Romeo
points out that in 1861, of the 358 Sicilian communes, only 268 had ele-
mentary schools. In all, there were around 21,000 pupils, or about 0.86%
of the population, a proportion much lower than that of every other
Italian region (201). By another measure, four years after the unification,
835 of 1000 male and 938 of 1000 female Southerners were illiterate.
Under the Bourbons and in the first decades following the unification,
education was largely left to the discretion of local administrators, many of
whom were against educating the masses. Their opposition issued in part
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experimental and hypothetical method with which he is already
familiar in the physical sciences.
In this version of the work of the three leading pragmatists it is
assumed, of course, that the pragmatist philosophy is the only
philosophy that can show to the average man that philosophy can
really do something useful—can “bake bread,” if you will, can give to
a man the food of a man. It is assumed, too, that it is the only
philosophy which proceeds scientifically, that is to say, by means of
observation and of hypotheses that “work,” and by subsequent
deduction and by “verification.” And again, that it is the only
philosophy that gives to man the realities upon which he can base
his aspirations or his faith in distinction, that is to say, from the mere
abstractions of Rationalism in any form.
By way of a few quotations illustrative of the fundamental
contentions of the pragmatists, we may select the following: “Ideas
become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory
relation with other parts of our experience, to summarise them and
get about among them by conceptional short-cuts instead of
following the interminable succession of particular phenomena. Any
idea upon which we can ride, so to speak; any idea that will carry us
prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part,
linking things satisfactorily, working securely, simplifying, saving
labour—is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true
29
instrumentally.” “The true is the name of whatever proves itself to
be good in the way of belief, and good for definite and assignable
30
reasons.” From Professor Dewey: “Thinking is a kind of activity
which we perform at specific need, just as at other times we engage
in other sorts of activity, as converse with a friend, draw a plan for a
house, take a walk, eat a dinner, purchase a suit of clothes, etc. etc.
The measure of its success, the standard of its validity is precisely
the degree in which thinking disposes of the difficulty and allows us
to proceed with the more direct modes of experiencing, that are
31
henceforth possessed of more assured and deepened value.”
From Dr. Schiller’s book, Studies in Humanism: “Pragmatism is the
doctrine that when an assertion claims truth, its consequences are
always used to test its claims; that (2) the truth of an assertion
depends on its application; that (3) the meaning of a rule lies in its
application; that (4) all meaning depends on purpose; that (5) all
mental life is purposive. It [Pragmatism] must constitute itself into (6)
a systematic protest against all ignoring of the purposiveness of
actual knowing, alike whether it is abstracted from for the sake of the
imaginary, pure, or absolute reason of the rationalists, or eliminated
for the sake of an equally imaginary or pure mechanism of the
naturalists. So conceived, we may describe it as (7) a conscious
application to logic of a teleological psychology which implies
ultimately a voluntaristic metaphysics.”
From these citations, and from the descriptive remarks of the
preceding two paragraphs, we may perhaps be enabled to infer that
our Anglo-American Pragmatism has progressed from the stage of
(1) a mere method of discussing truth and thinking in relation to the
problem of philosophy as a whole, (2) that of a more or less definite
and detailed criticism of the rationalism that overlooks the practical,
or purposive, character of most of our knowledge, to that of (3) a
humanistic or “voluntaristic” or “personalistic” philosophy, with its
32
many different associations and affiliations. One of the last
developments, for example, of this pragmatist humanism is Dr.
Schiller’s association of philosophy with the metaphysics of
evolution, with the attempt to find the goal of the world-process and
of human history in a changeless society of perfected individuals.
We shall immediately see, however, that this summary
description of the growth of Pragmatism has to be supplemented by
a recognition of (1) some of the different phases Pragmatism has
assumed on the continent of Europe, (2) the different phases that
may be detected in the reception or criticism accorded to it in
different countries, and (3) some of the results of the pragmatist
movement upon contemporary philosophy. All these things have to
do with the making of the complex thing that we think of as
Pragmatism and the pragmatist movement.
 A NOTE ON THE MEANING OF
“PRAGMATISM”
(1) “The opinion that metaphysics is to be largely cleared up by the application of
the following maxim for obtaining clearness of apprehension: ‘Consider what
effects that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of
our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our
conception of the object’” (Baldwin’s Philosophical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 321). [We
can see from this citation that the application of its formulæ about “consequences”
to metaphysics, or philosophy generally, must be considered as a part, or aspect,
of the pragmatist philosophy.]
(2) “The doctrine that the whole meaning of a conception expresses itself in
practical consequences; consequences either in the shape of conduct to be
recommended, or in that of experiences to be expected, if the conception be true;
which consequences would be different, if it were untrue, and must be different
from the consequences by which the meaning of other conceptions is in turn
expressed. If a second conception should not appear to have other consequence,
then it must be really only the first conception under a different name. In
methodology, it is certain that to trace and compare their respective consequences
is an admirable way of establishing the different meanings of different conceptions”
(ibid., from Professor James).
(3) “A widely current opinion during the last quarter of a century has been that
‘reasonableness’ is not a good in itself, but only for the sake of something.
Whether it be so or not seems to be a synthetical question [i.e. a question that is
not merely a verbal question, a question of words], not to be settled by an appeal
to the Principle of Contradiction [the principle hitherto relied upon by Rationalism
or Intellectualism].... Almost everybody will now agree that the ultimate good lies in
the evolutionary process in some way. If so, it is not in individual reactions in their
segregation, but in something general or continuous. Synechism is founded on the
notion that the coalescence, the becoming continuous, the becoming governed by
laws, the becoming instinct with general ideas, are but phases of one and the
same process of the growth of reasonableness” (ibid. p. 322. From Dr. Peirce, the
bracket clauses being the author’s).
(4) “It is the belief that ideas invariably strive after practical expression, and
that our whole life is teleological. Putting the matter logically, logic formulates
theoretically what is of regulative importance for life—for our ‘experience’ in view of
practical ends. Its philosophical meaning is the conviction that all facts of nature,
physically and spiritually, find their expressions in ‘will’; will and energy are
identical. This tendency is in agreement with the practical tendencies of American
thought and American life in so far as they both set a definite end before Idealism”
(Ueberweg-Heinze, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. iv., written and contributed by
Professor Matoon Monroe Curtis, Professor of Philosophy in Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, U.S.A.).
(5) See also an article in Mind for October 1900, vol. ix. N.S., upon
“Pragmatism” by the author of this book on Pragmatism and Idealism, referred to
as one of the early sources in Baldwin’s Philosophical Dictionary (New York and
London) and in Ueberweg-Heinze’s Geschichte, Vierter Teil (Berlin, 1906).
The conclusion that I am inclined to draw from the foregoing official statements
(and also, say, from another official article like that of M. Lalande in the Revue
Philosophique, 1906, on “Pragmatisme et Pragmaticisme”) is that the term
“Pragmatism” is not of itself a matter of great importance, and that there is no
separate, intelligible, independent, self-consistent system of philosophy that may
be called Pragmatism. It is a general name for the Practicalism or Voluntarism or
Humanism or the Philosophy of the Practical Reason, or the Activism, or the
Instrumentalism, or the Philosophy of Hypotheses, or the Dynamic Philosophy of
life and things that is discussed in different ways in this book upon Pragmatism
and Idealism. And it is not and cannot be independent of the traditional body of
philosophical truth in relation to which it can alone be defined.
 CHAPTER II
PRAGMATISM AND THE PRAGMATIST
MOVEMENT

In considering some of the results of pragmatist and voluntarist

doctrines in the case of European writers, to whom the American-
English triumvirate used to look somewhat sympathetically, we may
begin with Italy, which boasted, according to Dr. Schiller (writing in
1907), of a youthful band of avowed pragmatists with a militant
33
organ, the Leonardo. “Fundamentally,” declares Papini, the leader
of this movement, “Pragmatism means an unstiffening of all our
theories and beliefs, by attending to their instrumental value. It
incorporates and harmonizes various ancient tendencies, such as
Nominalism, with its protest against the use of general terms,
Utilitarianism, with its emphasis upon particular aspects and
problems, Positivism, with its disdain of verbal and useless
questions, Kantism, with its doctrine of the primacy of practical
reason, Voluntarism, with its treatment of the intellect as the tool of
the will, and Freedom, and a positive attitude towards religious
questions. It is the tendency of taking all these, and other theories,
for what they are worth, being chiefly a corridor-theory, with doors
and avenues into various theories, and a central rallying-ground for
them all.” These words are valuable as one of the many confessions
of the affiliations of Pragmatism to several other more or less
experiential, or practical, views of philosophy. It is perfectly obvious
from them that Pragmatism stands, in the main, for the apprehension
of all truth as subservient to practice, as but a device for the
“economy” of thought, for the grasping of the multiplicity and the
complexity of phenomena. It looks upon man as made, in the main,
for action, and not for speculation—a doctrine which even Mr. Peirce,
by the way, now speaks of as “a stoical maxim which to me, at the
age of sixty, does not recommend itself so forcibly as it did at
34
thirty.”
“The various ideal worlds are here,” continues Papini, according
35
to the version of James, “because the real world fails to satisfy us.
All our ideal instruments are certainly imperfect. But philosophy can
be regenerated ... it can become pragmatic in the general sense of
the word, a general theory of human action ... so that philosophic
thought will resolve itself into a comparative discussion of all the
possible programmes for man’s life, when man is once for all
regarded as a creative being.... As such, man becomes a kind of
god, and where are we to draw the limits?” In an article called “From
Man to God,” Papini, in the Leonardo, lets his imagination work in
stretching the limits of this way of thinking.
These prophetic, or Promethean, utterances—and we must
never forget that even to the Greeks philosophy was always
something of a religion or a life—may be paralleled by some of the
more enthusiastic and unguarded, early utterances of Dr. Schiller
about “voluntarism” or “metaphysical personalism” as the one
“courageous,” and the only potent, philosophy; or about the
“storming of the Jericho of rationalism” by the “jeers” and the
“trumpetings” of the confident humanists and their pragmatic
confrères. The underlying element of truth in them, and, for that part
of it, in many of the similar utterances of many of our modern
humanists, from Rabelais to Voltaire and from Shelley to Marx and
Nietzsche, is, as we may see, that a true metaphysic must serve, not
36
only as a rational system for the intellect, but as a “dynamic” or
motive for action and achievement, for the conscious activity of
rational, self-conscious beings.
37
As for the matter of any further developments of the free,
creative religion hinted by Papini, we had, in 1903, the solemn
declaration of Professor James that “the programme of the man-god
is one of the great type programmes of philosophy,” and that he
himself had been “slow” in coming to a perception of the full
inwardness of the idea. Then it led evidently in Italy itself to a new
doctrine which was trumpeted there a year or two ago in the public
38
press as “Futurism,” in which “courage, audacity and rebellion”
were the essential elements, and which could not “abide” the mere
mention of such things as “priests” and “ideals” and “professors” and
“moralism.” The extravagances of Prezzolini, who thinks of man as a
“sentimental gorilla,” were apparently the latest outcome of this
anarchical individualism and practicalism. Pragmatism was
converted by him into a sophisticated opportunism and a modern
Machiavellism, a method of attaining contentment in one’s life and of
dominating one’s fellow-creatures by playing upon their fancies and
prejudices as does the religious charlatan or the quack doctor or the
rhetorician.
The reader who may care to contemplate all this radical,
pragmatist enthusiasm for the New Reformation in a more
accessible, and a less exaggerated, form had better perhaps consult
the recent work of Mr. Sturt of Oxford on the Idea of a Free Church.
In this work the principles of Pragmatism are applied, first, critically
and in the main negatively, to the moral dogmas of traditional
Christianity, and then positively to the new conception of religion he
would substitute for all this—the development of personality in
accordance with the claims of family and of national life. A fair-
minded criticism of this book would, I think, lead to the conclusion
that the changes contemplated by Mr. Sturt are already part and
parcel of the programme of liberal Christianity, whether we study this
in the form of the many more or less philosophical presentations of
the same in modern German theology, or in the form of the free,
moral and social efforts of the voluntary religion of America and
England. In America many of the younger thinkers in theology and
philosophy are already writing in a more or less popular manner
upon Pragmatism as a philosophy that bids fair to harmonize
“traditional” and “radical” conceptions of religion. One of these
39
writers, for example, in a recent important commemorative volume,
tries to show how this may be done by interpreting the
“supernatural,” not as the “trans-experimental,” but as the “ethical” in
experience, and by turning “dogmatic” into “historical theology.” And
it would not be difficult to find many books and addresses in which
the same idea is expressed. The more practical wing of this same
party endeavours to connect Pragmatism with the whole philosophy
and psychology of religious conversion, as this has been worked
40 41
over by recent investigators like Stanley Hall, Starbuck, and
others, and, above all, by James in his striking volume The Varieties
42
of Religious Experience.
The fact, of course—and I shall immediately refer to it—that
Pragmatism has been hailed in France as a salutary doctrine, not
merely by Liberals and Evangelicals, but by devout Catholics and
Anti-modernists, is perhaps enough to give us some pause in the
matter of its application in the sphere of theoretical and practical
religion. It is useful, it would seem, sometimes to “liberate” the spirit
of man, and useful, too, at other times to connect the strivings of the
individual with the more or less organized experiences of past ages.
Turning, then, to France, it is, judging from the claims of the
pragmatists, and from some of the literature bearing upon this entire
43
subject, fairly evident that there has been a kind of association or
relationship between Pragmatism and the following tendencies in
recent French philosophy: (1) the “freedom” and “indeterminism”
44
philosophy of Renouvier and other members of the Neo-Critical
school, and of Boutroux and Bergson, who, “although differing from
each other in many important respects,” all “belong to the same
movement of thought, the reaction against Hegelianism and the cult
of science which has dominated France since the decline of the
45
metaphysics of the school of Cousin”; (2) the philosophy of
science and scientific hypotheses represented by writers like
46 47 48
Poincaré, Brunschvicg, Le Roy, Milhaud, Abel Rey, and
others; (3) the religious philosophy and the fideism of the followers of
the spiritualistic metaphysic of Bergson, many of whom go further
than he does, and “make every effort to bring him to the confessional
49
faith”; and (4) the French philosophy of to-day that definitely bears
50
the name of Pragmatism, that of M. Blondel, who in 1893 wrote a
suggestive work entitled L’Action, and who claims to have coined the
word Pragmatism, after much careful consideration and
discrimination, as early as 1888—many years before the California
pamphlet of James.
The first of these points of correspondence or relationship we
can pass over with the remark that we shall have a good deal to say
about the advantage enjoyed by Pragmatism over Rationalism in the
treatment of “freedom” and the “volitional” side of human nature, and
also about the general pragmatist reaction against Rationalism.
And as for the philosophy of science, it has been shown that our
English-speaking pragmatists cannot exactly pride themselves in the
somewhat indiscriminate manner of James and Schiller upon the
supposed support for their “hypothetical” conception of science and
philosophy to be found in the work of their French associates upon
the logic of science. “The men of great learning who were named as
sponsors of this new philosophy have more and more testified what
reservations they make, and how greatly their conclusions differ from
51
those which are currently attributed to them.” Both Brunschvicg
and Poincaré, in fact, take the greatest pains in their books to
dissociate themselves from anything like the appearance of an
acceptance of the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, from the
signs of any lack of faith in the idea that science, as far as it goes,
gives us a true revelation of the nature of reality.
Then in regard to (3) the French pragmatist philosophy or
religion we have only to read the reports and the quotations of M.
Lalande to see in this philosophy the operation of an uncritical
dogmatism or a blind “fideism” to which very few other philosophers,
either in France or in any other country, would care to subscribe. “La
Revue de Philosophie, which is directed by ecclesiastics, recently
extolled pragmatism as a means of proving orthodox beliefs.” ...
“This system solves a great many difficulties in philosophy; it
explains the necessity of principles marvellously.” ... “The existence
of God, Providence and Immortality are demonstrated by their happy
effects upon our terrestrial life.” ... “If we can consider the matter
carefully, it will be seen that the Good is the useful; for not to be
good in anything is synonymous with being bad, and everywhere the
52
true is the useful. It is in this assertion that Pragmatism consists.”
And as to the fourth tendency, there is, at its outset, according to
M. Lalande, a more rational or ethical basis for the fideism of M.
Blondel’s book upon action, which starts off with a criticism of
philosophic dilettantism quite analogous with that which Mr. Peirce
follows in How to Make Our Ideas Clear. But M. Blondel “does not
continue in the same manner, and his conclusion is very different.
Rejecting all philosophical formalism, he puts his trust in moral
experience, and consults it directly. He thinks that moral experience
shows that action is not wholly self-contained, but that it
presupposes a reality which transcends the world in which we
53
participate.”
Finally, maintains M. Blondel, “we are unable, as Pascal already
said, either to live, or to understand ourselves, by ourselves alone.
So that, unless we mutilate our nature by renouncing all earnestness
of life, we are necessarily led to recognize in ourselves the presence
of God. Our problem, therefore, can only be solved by an act of
absolute faith in a positive religion [Catholicism in his case]. This
completes the series of acts of faith, without which no action, not
even our daily acts, could be accomplished, and without which we
should fall into absolute barrenness, both practical and
54
intellectual.”
Now again these words about our being unable to understand
ourselves “by ourselves alone” contain an element of truth which we
may associate with the pragmatist tendency to believe in a socialized
55
(as distinguished from an individualistic) interpretation of our
common moral life, to believe, that is to say, in a society of persons
as the truth (or the reality) of the universe, rather than in an
interpretation of the universe as the thinking experience of a single
absolute intelligence. This, however, is also a point which we are
56
obliged to defer until we take up the general subject of the
relations between Pragmatism and Rationalism. The other words of
the paragraph, in respect of our absolute need of faith in some
positive religion, are, of course, expressive again of the uncritical
fideism to which reference has already been made. As an offset or
alternative to the “free” religion of Papini and James and to the
experimental or practical religion of different Protestant bodies, it is
57
enough of itself to give us pause in estimating the real drift of
Pragmatism in regard to religious faith and the philosophy of
58
religion.
59
We shall meantime take leave of French Pragmatism with the
reflection that it is thus obviously as complex and as confusing and
confused a thing as is the Pragmatism of other countries. It is now
almost a generation since we began to hear of a renascence of
60
spiritualism and idealism in France in connexion not merely with
61
the work of philosophers like Renouvier and Lachelier and Fouillée
and Boutroux, but with men of letters like De Vogué, Lavisse,
62
Faguet, Desjardins and the rest, and some of the French
Pragmatism of to-day is but one of the more specialized phases of
the broader movement.
And as for the special question of the influence of James and his
philosophy upon Bergson, and of that of the possible return influence
63
of Bergson upon James, the evidence produced by Lalande from
Bergson himself is certainly all to the effect that both men have
worked very largely independently of each other, although perfectly
cognisant now and then of each other’s publications. Both men,
along with their followers (and this is all that needs interest us), have
obviously been under the influence of ideas that have long been in
64
the air about the need of a philosophy that is “more truly empirical”
than the traditional philosophy, and more truly inclined to “discover
what is involved in our actions in the ultimate recess, when,
unconsciously and in spite of ourselves, we support existence and
65
cling to it whether we completely understand it or not.”
As for Pragmatism and pragmatist achievements in Germany,
there is, as might well be supposed, little need of saying much. The
genius of the country is against both; and if there is any Pragmatism
in Germany, it must have contrived somehow to have been “born
66
again” of the “spirit” before obtaining official recognition. So much
even might be inferred from the otherwise generous recognition
accorded to the work of James by scholars and thinkers like Eucken
67
and Stein and the rest. Those men cannot see Pragmatism save in
the broad light of the “humanism” that has always characterised
philosophy, when properly appreciated, and understood in the light of
its true genesis. Pragmatism has in fact been long known in
Germany under the older names of “Voluntarism” and “Humanism,”
although it may doubtless be associated there with some of the more
pronounced tendencies of the hour, such as the recent insistence of
the “Göttingen Fries School” upon the importance of the “genetic”
and the “descriptive” point of view in regard even to the matter of the
supposed first principles of knowledge, the hypothetical and
methodological conception of philosophy taken by philosophical
68
scientists like Mach and Ostwald and their followers, the
69
“empiricism” and “realism” of thinkers like the late Dr. Avenarius of
Zurich.
Then the so-called “teleological,” or “practical,” character of our
human thinking has also been recognized in modern German
thought long before the days of Peirce and Dewey, even by such
strictly academic thinkers as Lotze and Sigwart. The work of the
latter thinker upon Logic, by the way, was translated into English
under distinctly Neo-Hegelian influences. In the second portion of
this work the universal presuppositions of knowledge are considered,
not merely as a priori truths, but as akin in some important respects
“to the ethical principles by which we are wont to determine and
70
guide our free conscious activity.” But even apart from this matter
of the natural association of Pragmatism with the Voluntarism that
71
has long existed in German philosophy, we may undoubtedly pass
to the following things in contemporary and recent German thought
as sympathetic, in the main, to the pragmatist tendencies of James
and Dewey and Schiller: (1) the practical conception of science and
philosophy, as both of them a kind of “economy of the attention,” a
72
sort of “conceptual shorthand” (for the purposes of the
“description” of our environment) that we have referred to in the case
of Mach and Ostwald; (2) the close association between the
73
“metaphysical” and the “cultural” in books like those of Jerusalem
74
and Eleutheropulos; (3) the sharp criticism of the Rationalism of
the Critical Idealism by the two last-mentioned thinkers, and by some
75
of the members of the new Fichte School like Schellwien; and last
76
but not least, (4) the tendency to take a psychological and a
77
sociological (instead of a merely logical) view of the functions of
thought and philosophy, that is just as accentuated in Germany at
the present time as it is elsewhere.
James and Schiller have both been fond of referring to the work
of many of these last-mentioned men as favourable to a conception
of philosophy less as a “theory of knowledge” (or a “theory of being”)
in the old sense than as a Weltanschauungslehre (a view of the
world as whole), a “discussion of the various possible programmes
for man’s life” to which reference has already been made in the case
of Papini and others. And we might associate with their predilections
and persuasions in this regard the apparent Pragmatism also of a
78
great scholar like Harnack in reference to the subordination of
religious dogma to the realities of the religious life, or the
79
Pragmatism of Ritschl himself, in regard to the subordinate place
in living religion of mere intellectual theory, or even some of the
tendencies of the celebrated value-philosophy of Rickert and
80 81
Windelband and Münsterberg and the rest. But again the main
trouble about all this quasi-German support for the pragmatists is
that most of these contemporary thinkers have taken pains to trace
the roots of their teaching back into the great systems of the past.
The pragmatists, on the other hand, have been notoriously careless
about the matter of the various affiliations of their “corridor-like” and
eclectic theory.
 There are many reasons, however, against regarding even the
philosophical expression of many of the practical and scientific
tendencies of Germany as at all favourable to the acceptance of
Pragmatism as a satisfactory philosophy from the German point of
view. Among these reasons are: (1) The fact that it is naturally
impossible to find any real support in past or present German
philosophy for the impossible breach that exists in Pragmatism
between the “theoretical” and the “practical,” and (2) the fact that
Germany has only recently passed through a period of sharp conflict
between the psychological (or the “genetic”) and the logical point of
view regarding knowledge, resulting in a confessed victory for the
latter. And then again (3) even if there is a partial correspondence
between Pragmatism and the quasi economic (or “practical”)
conception taken of philosophy by some of the younger men in
Germany who have not altogether outlived their reaction against
Rationalism, there are other tendencies there that are far more
characteristic of the spirit and of the traditions of the country. Among
these are the New Idealism generally, the strong Neo-Kantian
82
movement of the Marburg school and their followers in different
83
places, the revived interest in Hegel and in Schelling, the Neo-
Romanticism of Jena, with its booklets upon such topics as The
84
Culture of the Soul, Life with Nature, German Idealism, and so on.
And then (4) there are just as many difficulties in the way of
regarding the psychological and sociological philosophy of men like
Jerusalem and Eleutheropulos as anything like a final philosophy of
knowledge, as there is in attempting to do the same thing with the
merely preliminary and tentative philosophy of James and his
associates.
Returning now to America and England, although Pragmatism is
85
eminently an American doctrine, it would, of course, be absurd to
imagine that Pragmatism has carried the entire thought of the United
86
States with it. It encountered there, even at the outset, at least
something of the contempt and the incredulity and the hostility that it
met with elsewhere, and also much of the American shrewd
indifference to a much-advertised new article. The message of
James as a philosopher, too, was doubtless discounted (at least by
the well-informed) in the light of his previous brilliant work as a
descriptive psychologist, and also, perhaps, in the light of his
87
wonderfully suggestive personality.
What actually happened in America in respect of the pragmatist
movement was, first of all, the sudden emergence of a magazine
88
literature in connexion with the Will-to-Believe philosophy of James
and the California address, and in connexion (according to the
generous testimony of James) with Deweyism or “Instrumentalism.”
Much of this tiresome and hair-splitting magazine discussion of
“ideas as instruments of thought,” and of the “consequences”
(“theoretical” or “practical” or what not) by which ideas were to be
“tested,” was pronounced by James, in 1906, to be largely crude and
superficial. It had the indirect merit, however, of yielding one or two
valuable estimates of the many inconsistencies in Pragmatism, and
of the many different kinds of Pragmatism or instrumentalism that
there seemed to be, and of the value of Pragmatism as a “theory of
knowledge,” and as a “philosophical generalization.” The upshot of
the whole preliminary discussion was (1) the discovery that,
Pragmatism having arisen (as Dewey himself put it) out of a
multitude of conflicting tendencies in regard to what we might call the
“approach” to philosophy, would probably soon “dissolve itself” back
89
again into some of the streams out of which it had arisen, and (2)
the discovery that all that this early “methodological” pragmatism
amounted to was the harmless doctrine that the meaning of any
conception expressed itself in the past or future conduct or
experience of actual, or possible, sentient creatures.
90
We shall again take occasion to refer to this comparative
failure of Pragmatism to give any systematic or unified account of the
consequences by which it would seek to test the truth of
propositions. Its failure, however, in this connexion is a matter of
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secondary importance in comparison with the great lesson to be
drawn from its idea that there can be for man no objective truth
 92
about the universe, apart from the idea of its meaning or
significance to his experience and to his conscious activity.
What is now taking place in America in this second decade [i.e.
in the years after 1908] of the pragmatist movement is apparently (1)
the sharpest kind of official rationalist condemnation of Pragmatism
as an imperfectly proved and a merely “subjective” and a highly
unsystematic philosophy; (2) the appearance of a number of
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instructive booklets upon Pragmatism and the pragmatist
movement, some of them expository and critical, some of them in the
main sympathetic, some of them condemnatory and even
contemptuous, and some of them attempts at further constructive
work along pragmatist lines; (3) indications here and there of the
acceptance and the promulgation of older and newer doctrines
antithetic and hostile to Pragmatism—some of them possibly as
typically American as Pragmatism itself.
As a single illustration of the partly constructive work that is
being attempted in the name and the spirit of pragmatism, we may
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instance the line of reflection entered upon by Professor Moore in
consequence of his claim that to Pragmatism the fundamental thing
in any judgment or proposition is not so much its consequences, but
its “value.” This claim may, no doubt, be supported by the many
declarations of James and Schiller that the “true,” like the “good” and
the “beautiful,” is simply a “valuation,” and not the fetish that the
rationalists make it out to be. It is doubtful, however, as we may try to
indicate, whether this “value” interpretation of Pragmatism can be
carried out independently of the more systematic attempts at a
general philosophy of value that are being made to-day in Germany
and America and elsewhere. And then it would be a matter of no
ordinary difficulty to clear up the inconsistency that doubtless exists
between Pragmatism as a value philosophy and Pragmatism as a
mere philosophy of “consequences.” It is “immediate,” and
“verifiable,” and “definitely appreciated” consequences, rather than
the higher values of our experience that (up to the present time)
seem to have bulked largely in the argumentations of the
pragmatists.
 And as an illustration of a doctrine that is both American and
95
hostile to pragmatism, we may instance the New Realism that was
recently launched in a collective manifesto in The Journal of
Philosophy and Scientific Methods. This realism is, to be sure,
hostile to every form of “subjectivism” or personalism, and may in a
certain sense be regarded as the emergence into full daylight of the
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realism or dualism that we found to be lurking in James’s “radical
empiricism.” It is, therefore, as it were, one of the signs that
Pragmatism is perhaps breaking up in America into some of the
more elemental tendencies out of which it developed—in this case
the American desire for operative (or effective) realism and for a
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“direct” contact with reality instead of the indirect contact of so
many metaphysical systems.
It is only necessary to add here that it is to the credit of American
rationalism of the Neo-Hegelian type that it has shown itself, notably
98
in the writings of Professor Royce, capable, not only of criticising
Pragmatism, but of seeking to incorporate, in a constructive
philosophy of the present, some of the features of the pragmatist
emphasis upon “will” and “achievement” and “purpose.” It is,
therefore, in this respect at least in line with some of the best
tendencies in contemporary European philosophy.
Lastly, there are certain tendencies of recent English philosophy
with which Pragmatism has special affinities. Among these may be
99
mentioned: (1) the various general and specific criticisms that have
been made there for at least two generations on the more or less
formal and abstract character of the metaphysic of our Neo-Kantians
and our Neo-Hegelians; (2) the concessions that have recently been
made by prominent rationalists to the undoubtedly purposive, or
“teleological,” character of our human thinking, and to the connexion
of our mental life with our entire practical and spiritual activity. Many
of these concessions are now regarded as the merest
commonplaces of speculation, and we shall probably refer to them in
our next chapter. Then there is (3) the well-known insistence of some
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of our foremost psychologists, like Ward and Stout, upon the
reality of activity and “purpose” in mental process, and upon the part
played by them in the evolution of our intellectual life, and of our
adjustment to the world in which we find ourselves. And (4) the
ethical and social idealism of such well-known members of our Neo-
Hegelian school as Professors Jones, Mackenzie, and Muirhead.
These scholars and thinkers are just as insistent as the pragmatists
upon the idea that philosophy and thought are, and should be, a
practical social “dynamic”—that is to say, “forces” and “motives”
making for the perfection of the common life. (5) A great deal of the
philosophy of science and of the philosophy of axioms and
postulates to be found in British writers, from Mill and Jevons to Karl
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Pearson and Mr. A. Sidgwick and many others.
Apart from all this, however, or rather, in addition to it, it may be
truly said that one of the striking things about recent British
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philosophical literature is the stir and the activity that have been
excited in the rationalist camp by the writings of the pragmatists and
the “personal idealists,” and by the critics of these newer modes of
thought. All this has led to many such re-statements of the problems
of philosophy as are to be found in the books of men like
103 104 105 106
Joachim, Henry Jones, A. E. Taylor, Boyce-Gibson,
107 108 109
Henry H. Sturt, S. H. Mellone, J. H. B. Joseph, and others,
and even, say, in such a representative book as that of Professor
Stewart upon the classical theme of Plato’s Theory of Ideas. In this
work an attempt is made to interpret Plato’s “Ideas” in the light of
pragmatist considerations as but “categories” or “points of view”
which we find it convenient to use in dealing with our sense
experience.
 CHAPTER III
SOME FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS

We shall now attempt a somewhat detailed treatment of a few of the

more characteristic tendencies of Pragmatism. The following have
already been mentioned in our general sketch of its development
and of the appearance of the pragmatist philosophy in Europe and
America: (1) the attempted modification by Pragmatism of the
extremes of Rationalism, and its dissatisfaction with the rationalism
of both science and philosophy; (2) its progress from the stage of a
mere practical and experimental theory of truth to a broad humanism
in which philosophy itself becomes (like art, say) merely an important
“dynamic” element in human culture; (3) its preference in the matter
of first principles for “faith” and “experience” and a trust in our
instinctive “beliefs”; (4) its readiness to affiliate itself with the various
liberal and humanistic tendencies in human thought, such as the
philosophy of “freedom,” and the “hypothetical method” of science,
modern ethical and social idealism, the religious reaction of recent
years, the voluntaristic trend in German post-Kantian philosophy,
and so on. Our subject in this chapter, however, is rather that of the
three or four more or less characteristic assumptions and
contentions upon which all these and the many other pragmatist
tendencies may be said to rest.
The first and foremost of these assumptions is the position that
all truth is “made” truth, “human” truth, truth related to human
attitudes and purposes, and that there is no “objective” or
“independent” truth, no truth “in whose establishment the function of
giving human satisfaction, in marrying previous parts of experience
with newer parts, has played no rôle.” Truths were “nothing,” as it
were, before they were “discovered,” and the most ancient truths
were once “plastic,” or merely susceptible of proof or disproof. Truth
is “made” just like “health,” or “wealth,” or “value,” and so on.
Insistence, we might say, upon this one note, along with the entire
line of reflection that it awakens in him, is really, as Dewey reminds
us, the main burden of James’s book upon Pragmatism. Equally
characteristic is it too of Dewey himself who is for ever reverting to
his doctrine of the factitious character of truth. There is no “fixed
distinction,” he tells us, “between the empirical values of the
unreflective life and the most abstract process of rational thought.”
And to Schiller, again, this same thought is the beginning of
everything in philosophy, for with an outspoken acceptance of this
doctrine of the “formation” of all truth, Pragmatism, he thinks, can do
at least two things that Rationalism is for ever debarred from doing:
(1) distinguish adequately “truth” from “fact,” and (2) distinguish
adequately truth from error. Whether these two things be, or be not,
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the consequences of the doctrine in question [and we shall return
to the point] we may perhaps accept it as, on the whole, harmonious
with the teaching of psychology about the nature of our ideas as
mental habits, or about thinking as a restrained, or a guided, activity.
It is in harmony, too, with the palpable truism that all “truth” must be
truth that some beings or other who have once “sought” truth (for
some reasons or other) have at last come to regard as satisfying
their search and their purposes. And this truism, it would seem, must
remain such in spite of, or even along with, any meaning that there
may be in the idea of what we call “God’s truth.” By this expression
men understand, it would seem, merely God’s knowledge of truths or
facts of which we as men may happen to be ignorant. But then there
can have been no time in which God can be imagined to have been
ignorant of these or any other matters. It is therefore not for Him truth
as opposed to falsehood.
And then, again, this pragmatist position about all truth being
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“made” truth would seem to be valid in view of the difficulty (Plato
spoke of it) of reconciling God’s supposed absolute knowledge of
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reality with our finite and limited apprehension of the same.