well pleased with the little book that he hopes to introduce it into the schools “as collateral reading for literary and philosophic studies.” That is a serious menace; and it behooves us to stop for a moment to consider the real value of the æsthetic system of Croce, which seems likely, through newspapers and schools, to lead the mass of our young compatriots astray for twenty years to come.
The Breviary examines in turn the nature of art, prejudices relating to art, the place of art in the spirit and in human society, and, finally, criticism and the history of art. All the points of the system are indeed set forth with greater brevity, if not with greater clearness, than hitherto. Every difficulty is dispelled in a twinkling, and with the most elegant ease. Problems are solved with that smile of superiority which seems to say: “There; do you mean to admit that you hadn’t realized a truth as simple as this?”
Here again we find not only the familiar ideas, but the familiar mental method of Croce, which consists chiefly in multiplying distinctions just in order to deny them, in scattering equality signs right and left, in that pleasant little game in which you announce that a thing is white and black at the same time, and that it is white precisely because it is black, and black precisely because it is white. The summit of truth, for example, is so situated that the conqueror “reaches
