Art and Religion were thus denied in their essence. Art could only be at best didactic or hedonistic, it was, therefore, considered at the service either of thought as a means of vulgarisation of scientific knowledge, or of sensation as capable of causing agreeable emotions. As to Religion it was disposed of in a more radical way. Theoretically misrepresented, historically ignored, it was to be tolerated by English philosophy for practical reasons as a political instrument and as the best educative force. It had been useful and necessary in the centuries of dark ignorance, but to the century that was to call itself the age of light it was a hindrance, an impediment of which mankind was to be rid at all cost. Illuminism, that is to say the enlightenment of the people, and the anti-religiousness of the philosophers were identified. The war waged against religion was confused with the war waged against ignorance. One step only was needed to make of ignorance a synonym for religion. Nobody waited to enquire why religion was everywhere and why it was always a factor in social life; nobody anyway could have answered the question as it would have implied historical research, a synthetic view of history, for which no one was fit. The Italians lacked the philosophical basis for such work, France and England lacked the turn of mind necessary to do it with intelligence. Germany was still in her teens until Leibniz came to proclaim the intellectual coming of age of his country. Thus religion was a puzzling problem to philosophers and the lack of intelligence towards this enigmatic X was to breed a great many political difficulties. Religion alone could have made up for the oncoming individualism, first social, then economic, which threatened universal destruction. Man was raised to the honours of the altar, hailed as ultimate reality in what is most negative and empirical in him. His intellectual activity was to become the principle of reality, which indeed it is in so far as it is transcendental and, therefore, divine. But the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries could only know this activity as far as it is empirical and, therefore, non-divine. Illuminism, with all its generosity and noble impulses, was unable to realise what transcends the reason and experience of every single man. It was to be the lot of Germany and, above all, Italy to conceive in speculative form the life of Mind and to realise the natural function of religion throughout history. CHAPTER V GIAMBATTISTA VICO In their studies of the Neapolitan philosopher, Croce and Gentile have done their work so thoroughly that to anyone approaching the same subject it would be very nearly impossible to say anything both new and good. The material here used to illustrate the contribution of Italy’s most original thinker to modern speculation and practical life will be drawn from the works of Gentile and Croce.