It would certainly be rash to claim precise knowledge of Vico's reasons for omitting this note on practical principles in the final manuscript of the last edition of the Scienza Nuova, just as he had omitted in the second work of that title the assertions on the subject which had appeared in the first. But we may at least venture to guess that the principal reason was the obvious emptiness of this passage, promising as it did a practical application which it failed to provide, and finally confessing that such a practical application was either impossible or already included in the theory itself.
[CHAPTER X]
PROVIDENCE
The true and only reality then, in the world of nations, is the course of their history: and the principle which regulates this course is Providence. From this point of view the New Science may be defined as a "rational civil theology of the divine providence." Bacon, among his historical sciences, had named a Historia Nemeseos (history of Divine Retribution). What for Bacon was little more than a mere name was for Vico a clearly stated problem and a developed theory. Philosophers, according to him, when they did not ignore Providence entirely, as materialists and determinists, considered it solely in the sphere of natural law, calling metaphysic by the name of "natural theology," and supporting the identification of God with the natural order observed in the motions of bodies, such as the spheres and the elements, and with the final cause which was seen to exist over and above the other natural causes. As against all this it was important to work out the doctrine of Providence "in the economy of matters civil."
It was observed by some of his earliest commentators, and the observation has been frequently repeated since, that Vico used the word "providence" indifferently in a subjective and an objective sense: sometimes to indicate the human belief in a provident deity controlling their doctrine, sometimes to denote the actual operation of this providence. The double or triple meaning of a single word in Vico's terminology is a thing which by now need cause no astonishment. We have often already been obliged to take pains to distinguish his homonyms and unite his synonyms. Hence we may at once recognise that one meaning of "Providence" for Vico might be and indeed is the belief in Providence, man's idea of God, first in the form of myth and later in the pure and rational form of philosophy. The Gentile nations of antiquity, he says, "began their metaphysical poetic wisdom by contemplating God in the attribute of his providence," upon which rested augury and divination. Without this idea, then, wisdom, the consciousness of the infinite, cannot take shape within man, nor can morality, the fear of and respect for the higher power which governs the affairs of men, arise. But in this sense of the word a further discussion of providence is unnecessary, after what we have said on the subjects of mythology and of the relation between morality and religion.
We therefore pass at once to Providence in its second sense, the real and strict conception of it; and here it seems advisable to leave Vico for a moment and to clear up certain points of doctrine.
It is a common observation that to create a given fact is one thing, to know it when created quite another. The knowledge of what a fact really is often comes in the life of the individual years later, in the life of mankind centuries later, than the fact itself. The very persons who are directly responsible for a given fact as a rule do not know it, or know it in a very imperfect and fallacious manner; so much so that the illusions which are said to accompany human activity have passed into a proverb. The poet thinks he is singing of purity when he is really singing of sensuality, and of strength while he is really singing of weakness; he believes himself to be a dreadful pessimist and is really childishly optimistic: imagines himself a devil, when he is a good fellow without an ounce of vice in him. Philosophers deceive themselves no less. We need not go far to find examples. The philosopher we are studying supplies a whole series of them; few have been more in the dark as to the real tendencies of their own thought. The politician also deceives himself; very often he believes and declares himself to be fighting for liberty while he is a mere reactionary, or while believing himself to be serving the cause of reaction is really inciting to revolt and aiding the cause of freedom: and so on. Such illusions are easy to understand. Individuals and nations in the heat of creation, or scarcely yet passing out of such a state, can perhaps express their state of mind, but cannot treat it in the critical spirit of historical narration: and accordingly, when they cannot reconcile themselves to waiting in silence, they compose imaginary histories of themselves, Wahrheiten und Dichtungen at once. In fact this proved difficulty of understanding one's actions while acting is one motive of the wise advice to speak of oneself as little as possible and of the suspicion with which autobiographies and memoirs are regarded. Such works are interesting and possibly even valuable; but they never present the strict historical truth of the facts they narrate.
Human labours are thus veiled in the mists of illusion which arise from individuals. The superficial historian clings to the veil, and in his attempt to describe the course of events, uses these illusions to make his voice carry. In this way the history of poetry takes the form of a narration of the intentions, opinions and aims of poets, or of those attributed to them by their contemporaries; the history of philosophy becomes a series of anecdotes concerning the sentiments, whims and practical aims of philosophers: the history of politics, a tissue of intrigue, base interests, gossip and greed. But a more careful historian, or one of a different type, will have nothing to do with history of this kind. His first act is to dispel the mists, to sweep away the individual and his illusions, and to look facts in the face as they appeared in their objective succession and their supra-individual origin. Real, true history arises independently of individuals, as a product growing to completion behind their backs, the product of a force apart from individual agents, which may be called Fate, Chance, Fortune or God. The individual, who at first was everything, and filled the whole stage with his posturing and declamation, is now, in this second aspect of history, less than nothing; his actions and cries, stripped of all serious potency, provoke laughter or pity. We look in terror at the Fate that dominates him, we stand aghast at the strange coincidence of chance or the caprices of Fortune, we bow before the inscrutable designs of the divine providence. The individual appears in turn as the inert material, the powerless plaything and the blind instrument of these forces. But deeper thought leads us beyond even this second view of history. The pity which the individual seems to arouse and the amusement he evokes are in reality deserved not by him but by his fancies, or rather, by those individuals who mistake fancy for truth. Real history is composed of actions, not of fancies and illusions: but actions are the work of individuals, not indeed in so far as they dream, but in the inspiration of genius, the divine madness of truth, the holy enthusiasm of the hero. Fate, Chance, Fortune, God—all these explanations have the same defect: they separate the individual from his product, and instead of eliminating the capricious element, the individual will in history, as they claim to do, they immensely reinforce and increase it. Blind Fate, irresponsible chance, and tyrannical God are all alike capricious: and hence Fate passes into Chance and God, Chance into Fate and God, and God into both the others, all three being equivalent and identical.