Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic, page 9 by Benedetto Croce
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10
His most remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy which one felt welling up in them from the soul beneath. This was especially noticeable as our conversation fell upon the question of Art and upon the many problems bound up with it. I do not know how long that first interview lasted, but it seemed a few minutes only, during which was displayed before me a vast panorama of unknown height and headland, of league upon league of forest, with its bright-winged birds of thought flying from tree to tree down the long avenues into the dim blue vistas of the unknown.
I returned with my brain awhirl, as though I had been in fairyland, and when I looked at the second edition of the Estetica, with his inscription, I was sure of it.
These lines will suffice to show how the translation of the Estetica originated from the acquaintance thus formed, which has developed into friendship. I will now make brief mention of Benedetto Croce's other work, especially in so far as it throws light upon the Aesthetic. For this purpose, besides articles in Italian and German reviews, I have made use of the excellent monograph on the philosopher, by G. Prezzolini.[1]
First, then, it will be well to point out that the Aesthetic forms part of a complete philosophical system, to which the author gives the general title of "Philosophy of the Spirit." The Aesthetic is the first of the three volumes. The second is the Logic, the third the Philosophy of the Practical.
In the Logic, as elsewhere in the system, Croce combats that false conception, by which natural science, in the shape of psychology, makes claim to philosophy, and formal logic to absolute value. The thesis of the pure concept cannot be discussed here. It is connected with the logic of evolution as discovered by Hegel, and is the only logic which contains in itself the interpreta