Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/593

R. FLINT'S vico. 581 example in the department of history. It was a prophecy and pretigura- tion of the achievements alike of a W"olf and Xiebuhr, of a Walter Scott and Augustin Thierry " (p. 223). The "discovery of the true Homer," which occupies a whole book in the second edition of the -S' I va (1730), is certainly the most important positive addition which Vico has made to historical science. " The Homeric poems are regarded as not the creations of the genius of an individual, but the formations of the genius of a race working throughout a period of about 460 years" (p. 174). This "discovery" involves a principle of historical criticism, which, remaining dormant for a while, became afterwards and is still of the weightiest consequence for human thought. But what, it may be asked, is the special significance of Yico as a philosopher ? It is again to the Scienza Nuova that we must turn : for it apparently requires Italian patriotism to discover much that is profitable in his ontological theories. " The Scienza Naovy," Professor Flint remarks, " one might almost say is Yico." Now this of itself is, as already implied, one of the main points about him, viz., that his interest is in the history of the institutions and the ideas of nations and humanity, rather than in psychology or ontology or in the sciences of nature. Secondly, his conception of method deserves attention. It con- sists in a combination of Reason and Authority, of Philosophy and Philology (cp. Scienza Xw->>:n, Lib. i " DeghElementi," Axiom x., &c.). " Philology " Vico understood in a wide sense as " the knowledge of the speech and acts of peoples". This Professor Flint well compares with Boeckh's definition, "Erkenntniss des Erkannten" (p. 192). Vice's method, if we generalise it, is thus the interpretation of facts (incL opinions) by reason and the test- ing of reason by facts. This is of course the method always more or less employed in all ordinary affairs of life by prudent persons ; it is the method of all scientific discoverers, of all great historians, and of all great philosophers. But it is not professedly the method of all. We may compare it with Aristotle's per- petual bringing together of Xd^oi and e/-/a, and with his habit of appealing to -ra -(oueva and criticising them. We may contrast it with Bacon's rejection of Authority and with the professed method of "experience," taking up a merely receptive atti- tude towards facts ; or, on the other side, with the Cartesian test of " clear ideas " and the abstract deductions of scholas- ticism, or the empty raisonnement of the Wolffian school (Kant's " dogmatists"). If we turn to Vico's actual performance, we are often repelled by his fantastic terminology, probably due in part to the bad example of Bacon, and when we have made out his meaning we are often disappointed. As Professor Flint says (p. 41) : " He was easily misled by false analogies. He was ingenious in devising perverse interpretations ". The main issue of Vico's