I. RHETORIC: OR THE THEORY OF ORNATE FORM. Rhetoric in the ancient sense--Criticism from moral point of view--Accumulation without system--Its fortunes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance--Criticisms by Vives, Ramus and Patrizzi--Survival into modern times--Modern signification of Rhetoric: theory of literary form--Concept of ornament--Classes of ornament--The concept of the Fitting--The theory of ornament in the Middle Ages and Renaissance--_Reductio ad absurdum_ in the seventeenth century--Polemic concerning the theory of ornament--Du Marsais and metaphor--Psychological interpretation--Romanticism and Rhetoric: present day II. HISTORY OF ARTISTIC AND LITERARY KINDS The kinds in antiquity: Aristotle--In the Middle Ages and Renaissance--The doctrine of the three unities--Poetics of the kinds and rules: Scaliger--Lessing--Compromises and extensions--Rebellion against rules in general--G. Bruno, Guarini--Spanish critics--G. B. Marino--G. V. Gravina--Fr. Montani--Critics of the eighteenth century--Romanticism and the "strict kinds": Berchet, V. Hugo--Their persistence in philosophical theories--Fr. Schelling--E. von Hartmann--The kinds in the schools III. THE THEORY OF THE LIMITS OF THE ARTS The limits of the arts in Lessing--Arts of space and arts of time--Limits and classifications of the arts in later philosophy: Herder and Kant--Schelling, Solger--Schopenhauer, Herbart--Weisse, Zeising, Vischer--M. Schasler--E. v. Hartmann--The supreme art: Richard Wagner--Lotze's attack on classifications--Contradictions in Lotze--Doubts in Schleiermacher IV. OTHER PARTICULAR DOCTRINES The Æsthetic theory of natural beauty--The theory of æsthetic senses--The theory of kinds of style--The theory of grammatical forms or parts of speech--Theory of æsthetic criticism--Distinction between taste and genius--Concept of artistic and literary history--Conclusion BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX INDEX EXTRACT FROM INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, 1909 I can lay no claim to having discovered an America, but I do claim to have discovered a Columbus. His name is Benedetto Croce, and he dwells on the shores of the Mediterranean, at Naples, city of the antique Parthenope. It was at Naples, in the winter of 1907, that I first saw the Philosopher of Æsthetic. Benedetto Croce, although born in the Abruzzi, Province of Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent from the city, on the shore of that magical sea where once Ulysses sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the Theory of Æsthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the English-speaking world. . . . . . . . . . . The solution of the problem of Æsthetic is not in the gift of the Muses.