Since the publication of _Æsthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic,_ there has been some movement in the direction of the study of Italian thought and culture, which I advocated in the Introduction to that work. But the Alps continue to be a barrier, and the thought of France and of Germany reaches us, as a rule, far more rapidly than that of the home of all the arts and of civilization, as we may call that Italy which contains within it the classical Greater Greece. A striking instance of this relatively more rapid distribution of French thought is afforded by the celebrated _Lundis_ of Sainte-Beuve, so familiar to many readers; yet a critic, greater in depth than Sainte-Beuve, was writing at the same period--greater in philosophical vision of the relations of things, for the vision of Sainte-Beuve rarely rose above the psychological plane. For one reader acquainted with the _History of Italian Literature_ of De Sanctis, a hundred are familiar with the _Lundis_ of Sainte-Beuve. At the present moment the hegemony of philosophical thought may be said to be divided between Italy and France, for neither Great Britain nor Germany has produced a philosophical mind of the first order. The interest in Continental idealism is becoming yearly more keen, since the publication of Bergson's and of Blondel's treatises, and of Croce's _Philosophy of the Spirit._ Mr. Arthur Balfour, being himself a philosopher, was one of the first to recognise the importance of the latter work, referring to its author in terms of high praise in his oration on Art delivered at Oxford in the Sheldonian Theatre. Mr. Saintsbury also has expressed his belief that with the _Æsthetic_ Croce has provided the first instrument for scientific (_i.e._ philosophical, not "natural" scientific) criticism of literature. This surely is well, and should lead to an era of more careful and less impartial, of more accurate because more scientific criticism of our art and poetry. I trust that a similar service may be rendered to Ethical theory and practice by the publication of the present translation, which I believe to be rich with great truths of the first importance to humanity, here clearly and explicitly stated for the first time and therefore (in Vico's sense of the word) "created," by his equal and compatriot, Benedetto Croce. Then leaning upon the arm of time came Truth, whose radiant face, Though never so late to the feast she go, hath aye the foremost place. DOUGLAS AINSLIE. ATHENAEUM CLUB, PALL MALL, _January_ 1913. [1] G. de Ruggiero, _La Filosofia contemporanea,_ Laterza, Bari, 1912. CONTENTS FIRST PART THE PRACTICAL ACTIVITY IN GENERAL FIRST SECTION THE PRACTICAL ACTIVITY IN ITS RELATIONS I THE PRACTICAL ACTIVITY AS A FORM OF THE SPIRIT 3