THEORY & HISTORY OF HISTORIOGRAPHY by BENEDETTO CROCE authorized translation BY DOUGLAS AINSLIE LONDON GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY 1921 PREFACE TO THE FIRST ITALIAN EDITION Almost all the writings which compose the present treatise were printed in the proceedings of Italian academies and in Italian reviews between 1912 and 1913. Since they formed part of a general scheme, their collection in book form presented no difficulties. This volume has appeared in German under the title _Zur Theorie und Geschichte der Historiographie_ (Tübingen, Mohr, 1915). On publishing in book form in Italian, I made a few slight alterations here and there and added three brief essays, placed as an appendix to the first part. The description of the volume as forming the fourth of my _Philosophy of the Spirit_ requires some explanation; for it does not really form a new systematic part of the philosophy, and is rather to be looked upon as a deepening and amplification of the theory of historiography, already outlined in certain chapters of the second part, namely the _Logic_. But the problem of historical comprehension is that toward which pointed all my investigations as to the modes of the spirit, their distinction and unity, their truly concrete life, which is development and history, and as to historical thought, which is the self-consciousness of this life. In a certain sense, therefore, this resumption of the treatment of historiography on the completion of the wide circle, this drawing forth of it from the limits of the first treatment of the subject, was the most natural conclusion that could be given to the whole work. The character of 'conclusion' both explains and justifies the literary form of this last volume, which is more compressed and less didactic than that of the previous volumes. B. C. Naples: May 1916 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE The author himself explains the precise connexion of the present work with the other three volumes of the _Philosophy of the Spirit_, to which it now forms the conclusion. I had not contemplated translating this treatise, when engaged upon the others, for the reason that it was not in existence in its present form, and an external parallel to its position as the last, the late comer of the four masterpieces, is to be found in the fact of its publication by another firm than that which produced the preceding volumes. This diversity in unity will, I am convinced, by no means act as a bar to the dissemination of the original thought contained in its pages, none of which will, I trust, escape the diligent reader through the close meshes of the translation. The volume is similar in format to the _Logic_, the _Philosophy of the Practical_, and the _Æsthetic_. The last is now out of print, but will reappear translated by me from the definitive fourth Italian edition, greatly exceeding in bulk the previous editions.