_disiecta membra_ of our intellectual consciousness will be brought together through a higher synthesis than the one from which they fell apart at the end of the Renaissance. We are now in a position to understand why it would be vain to look in the work of Croce for either an organized synthesis of scientific thought, understood as a means through which the mind of man grasps the reality of nature, or a system of metaphysics attempting to explain the facts of our human life by reference to an order of superhuman and supernatural realities. These are two types of philosophy, a criticism of which is implicit in every step of Croce's philosophical career, as well as in the quality of his philosophical ancestry. But in their place we shall find a series of meditations on the problems of the human spirit in its actual historical development; on the distinctions and inter-relations of the various forms of spiritual activity, not as they appear, in a purely abstract and external consideration, to the eye of the psychologist, but as they reveal themselves in the intimacy of those spiritual and historical processes, in which man creates at the same time his own being and his own truth. As we have stated already, the philosophy of Croce is essentially a philosophy of the humanistic tradition, of that Italian and European tradition the consciousness of which seems to be fast disappearing even among those who consider themselves as its exponents and defenders; and which in his thought not only justifies and understands itself, but brings that justification and that understanding to a greater depth, to a more comprehensive clarity, than it ever reached during the many centuries of its existence. [Footnote 4: _Contributo_, p. 26.] [Footnote 5: _Hegel,_ pp. 147-8.] PART FIRST FROM PHILOLOGY TO PHILOSOPHY (1893-1899) I. HISTORY AS ART Croce's first philosophical essay--Is history an art or a science?--The essence of art--History as the representation of reality, and therefore, art--The distinction between art and science--A tentative definition of history.