Now if these three classes of inquiry and theory had been logically distinct in Vico's mind and united and compressed within the limits of a single book for literary reasons alone, the result might have been confused, ill-proportioned, out of harmony, and therefore fatiguing to the reader, but not obscure. But in point of fact it cannot be said that the _Scienza Nuova,_ at least in its second form, the final exposition of his thought given by Vico, lacks a general plan, well enough conceived. The treatise is divided into five books. The first is intended to summarise general principles, that is, philosophy. The second, in addition to a short note on the most ancient universal history, describes the life of barbaric society, to which the third, on the discovery of the true Homer, the most conspicuous example of barbaric poetry, forms an appendix. The fourth is meant to sketch the empirical science of the movement of national history: and the fifth to exemplify the movement of "reflux" in the particular case of the Middle Ages. And yet, in spite of this fine architectonic scheme, the second _Scienza Nuova_ is the most obscure, just as it is the most rich and complete of Vico's works. If on the other hand, while keeping his ideas clear in his mind, Vico had used an unfamiliar terminology or a style of exposition either too compressed or too full of allusions or implicit presuppositions, he would certainly have been a difficult writer, but in this case, as in the other, not obscure. But such a hypothesis does not suit the facts. Vico is very sparing of scholastic language; he prefers living and popular terminology. He is not compressed: in fact, he is fond of repeating his ideas, emphasising them by repetition with great insistence. And he lays all his cards on the table: that is to say, he shows all the material by which his doctrines have been suggested. Finally, it amounts to very little to say that Vico was not fully conscious of his own discoveries: such consciousness is more or less deficient in every thinker, and in fact none could have it more fully. The obscurity, the real obscurity which we find in Vico is not superficial. It does not come either from merely general or from secondary causes. It really consists in the obscurity of his ideas; in his insufficient understanding of certain connections, and the substitution for them of fallacious ones; in the arbitrary element, that is, which he introduces into his thought, or to put it more simply in his own downright errors. One might rewrite the New Science, recasting the order and changing and elucidating the terminology--the present writer has made the attempt for himself--and still the obscurity would remain, or even increase; for in such a translation the work in losing its original form would lose also the turbid but powerful strength which may at times take the place of clarity, and, while it does not illuminate, stirs the reader's mind and