But he does not stop here. He goes on to say that Croce “slides easily into logical casuistry and refutes more readily than he can conclude.” It is easy to see that Scholasticism is being held to blame here. Durant does not like Scholasticism, and he does not like Croce. Not that there is the slightest evidence that Durant ever read a single scholastic author. I am merely assuming that he has. And he would like to derive the cause of one dislike from the source of the other. So he permits himself to use the word “casuistry” as loosely as Browne would have us believe St. Paul used theological terms--that is, he uses it as an old lady sitting by the fire might use it, to denote sophistry, and sophistry to denote an unsound argument. A philosopher could never have so forgotten the original meaning of casuistry as the art of dealing with cases of conscience, especially when writing of Croce with the idea that he was a scholastic. But perhaps it was the “German” scholasticism of his subject which fogged the Durant mind at this point. But how explain the following? He tells of Croce becoming Minister of Public Education and a Senator, and denouncing the World War. Then he adds: “But Italy has forgiven him now; and all the youth of the land look up to him as their unbiased guide, philosopher and friend.”[219] Had Durant but said, “The anti-fascist wing of the _Intelligencia_, most of whom are far from young and cling to the atheistic French Revolutionary philosophy of the _Risorgimento_, look up to Croce,” the statement would have been true--in so far as a member of the _Intelligencia_ may be said to look up to anybody. Every unbiased person who has spent much time in Italy of late knows that most of the youth of that country today look upon Mussolini, and not Croce, as their guide, philosopher and friend. And Mussolini is a Catholic. Has Durant never heard of the Black Shirts or of the March on Rome? But perhaps I am wrong in finding fault with Durant’s fondness for catering to popular misconceptions which no doubt he shares. He quotes his favorite Bergson as saying, “The time given to refutation in philosophy is usually time lost. Of the many attacks directed by the many thinkers against each other, what now remains? Nothing, or assuredly very little. That which counts and endures is the modicum of positive truth which each contributes.”