This was the spirit that found expression in the Autobiography, a work which has been misjudged and in fact entirely misunderstood by Ferrari, who censures its prevailing teleological tendency and laments the absence of a "psychological" explanation of Vico's life;[63] as if Vico had not himself explained that he was writing it from a "philosophical" point of view.[64] And what is the meaning of a philosophical treatment of a philosopher's life but an understanding of the objective necessity of his thought and a perception of the scaffolding it involves even where the author at the moment of thinking did not clearly perceive it? Vico "meditates upon the causes, natural and moral, and upon the occasions of his fortunes; he meditates upon the inclinations or aversions he felt from childhood towards this or that branch of study; he meditates upon the opportunities or hindrances which assisted or retarded his progress; he meditates, lastly, upon certain efforts of his own in right directions which bore fruit in the reflections upon which he built his final work, the _Scienza Nuova,_ which work was to demonstrate that his literary life was bound to have been what it was and not different."[65] Vico's _Autobiography_ is, in a word, the application of the _Scienza Nuova_ to the life of its author, the course of his own individual history: and its method is as just and true as it is original. Vico succeeded in part only of his attempt, and could not form a criticism and history of himself to the same extent to which a modern critic and historian is in a position to do--whose efforts will again be improved upon by those of the future--is too obvious to need emphasising. The _Autobiography_ itself concludes with a blessing upon the author's hardships, a profession of faith in Providence and a sure expectation of fame and glory. [Footnote 61: _Ibid._ p. 29.] [Footnote 62: _Ibid._ p. 446.] [Footnote 63: In the Introduction to vol. iv. of the _Opere._] [Footnote 64: _Autob._ in _Opp._ iv. p. 402.] [Footnote 65: _Ibid._] IX In the last years of his life Vico, enfeebled by age, domestic trouble and illness, "entirely gave up his studies":[66] My pen is slipping from my palsied grasp; The door of my thought's treasury is closed,[67]