339 



VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. 



VICQ-D'AZYR, FELIX. 



840 



Camarino.' The others which are enumerated as by him, are the 

 church and monastery ' Delle Salesiane,' at Offagna ; the seminary at 

 Oaimo ; the villa and casini at Monte Qallo, the Palazzo Lepri at 

 Bevagna: the church of S. Francesco at Folhino; and the Cappella 

 Gozzoli at Torni. Vici died September 10th, 1817. 



VICO, GIOVANNI BATTISTA, one of the most acute thinkers of 

 the first half of the last century, was born in 1668, at Naples, where 

 his father was a bookseller in rather limited circumstances. Respecting 

 his early youth nothing is known, except that at the age of seven he 

 fractured his skull by a fall, which caused him great sufferings, and 

 which, as he himself says, produced in after-life an inclination to 

 melancholy. His education was nominally conducted by the Jesuits ; 

 but as he was not of a disposition to yield to the influence or follow the 

 rules of others, he worked out his own education for himself. He 

 devoted himself chiefly to the study of philosophy, languages, and 

 jurisprudence, and in the last of these branches his proficiency was 

 such that at the age of sixteen he successfully defended an action 

 which had been brought against hia father. But Vico was neither 

 inclined, nor had he sufficient strength to follow the profession of a 

 lawyer ; and as he had not the means of living in independence, the offer 

 which was made him to instruct tho nephew of Rocco, bishop of 

 Ischia, in jurisprudence, was gladly accepted. In this quiet and re- 

 tired position, in which he remained for nine years, he gradually 

 recovered his strength, and devoted all his leisure to the study of 

 canon law, theology, and the ancients ; and it was here that he con- 

 ceived the plan of his great work, of which we shall speak presently. 

 His taste grew more and more severe : the literature of his own time 

 lost all attractions for him. Among the writers of his own country 

 were chiefly Petrarch, Boccaccio, aud Dante, in whose works he sought 

 and found instruction; and among the ancients Plato and Cicero, 

 though the latter chiefly on account of his style, which he himself 

 took great pains to imitate. Soon after his return to Naples he 

 marrieJ. His mind had hitherto been wrapped up in the ancients and 

 in the development of his own ideas ; and the servile adherence of the 

 philosophers of the time to tho system of Des Cartes, together with 

 the then prevailing taste in poetry, confirmed him still more in his 

 partiality for the ancients. Vico had now, as before, to work his own 

 way, and in order to be free from all bias, he read the ancients without 

 the assistance of any commentaries. The French language he dis- 

 dained altogether, and so strong was his desire to acquire a pure 

 Latin style, that for a time he even abandoned Greek literature, and 

 gave himself up entirely to reading the best Latin authors. In 1697 

 he was appointed professor of rhetoric in the university of Naples, 

 with the scanty salary of 100 scudi per annum. In order to maintain 

 himself and his family he was obliged to give private lessons in Latin. 

 But he now had an opportunity of expressing on various occasions in 

 public his opinions on matters of the highest importance. He en- 

 deavoured to point out the common bond of all the sciences, and how 

 superior the ancients had been in not dividing and separating the 

 sciences from one another, but cultivating all in common, as Aristotle 

 had done ; and that it was impossible successfully to cultivate one 

 without knowing the rest. By his public orations on such subjects. 

 and still more by the publication of some works of great originality, 

 he acquired a high reputation, and when the chair of jurisprudence 

 in the university had become vacant, he applied for it. In respect of 

 knowledge and ability none could enter into competition with him ; 

 but as he would not condescend to have recourse to the means which 

 were usually employed by candidates for such offices, he saw little 

 prospect of his gaining his object, and withdrew from the contest. 

 The disappointment caused him deep grief; but neither this nor 

 several domestic afflictions by which he was visited could break down 

 his spirit, and with renewed ardour he now set about completing the 

 work which had for many years occupied all his thoughts. This 

 work, entitled ' Principi di una Scienza nuova d'intorno alia Com- 

 mune Natura delle Nazioni,' appeared at Naples iu 1725. A second 

 and third edition appeared in the author's lifetime, and the seventh 

 appeared at Naples in 1817. After the completion of this work his 

 mind was at rest ; and had his outward circumstances been more 

 favourable, his happiness would have been perfect. On the accession 

 of the house of the Bourbons to the throne of Naples in 1735, better 

 days seemed to dawn upon him ; for he was appointed historiographer 

 to the king, and his son, Gennaro Vico, obtained the professorship of 

 rhetoric. But his mental powers were broken down, both by intense 

 study and by domestic cares and anxieties. He fell into a state of 

 insensibility, which lasted for fourteen months, during which he knew 

 neither his friends nor his children. In this state he died, on the 20th 

 of January, 1744. 



^ The ' New Science ' (' Principi di una Scienza Nuova ') is the prin- 

 cipal work of Vico; but although three editions appeared in his 

 lifetime, it seems to have been nearly forgotten for more than fifty 

 years after his death. This is probably owing to the extraordinary 

 obscurity of the work, which was increased by the additions published 

 in the third edition (probably by Gennaro Vico) from the author's 

 manuscripts, which are frequently inserted in places where they in- 

 terrupt and destroy the argument. But notwithstanding this great 

 defect, tho work is one of the most remarkable phenomena of modern 

 literature. In England the work seems to have been unknown, until 

 a French exposition of Vico's system, by Michelet, attracted attention 



to it, and induced a writer in the ' Philological Museum ' (ii., p. 626) to 

 give a sketch of his life and his philosophy to the English public. 

 The great truth which he endeavours to establish in this ' Scienza 

 Nuova' is that the history of the human race is determined by laws 

 which are as certain in their operation as those by which the material 

 world is governed. He sets forth these laws or principles in the form 

 of a series of broad assertions, which he endeavours to demonstrate 

 and explain. He set out from the conviction that as the idea of the 

 material world existed in the Divine intellect previous to the creation 

 of the world, so there must also have existed in it an eternal idea of 

 the history of mankind ; and this idea is realised and manifested in 

 the actual events of history. He endeavours to prove that notwith- 

 standing all the apparent confusion and incoherence in human affair?, 

 that eternal idea is never departed from ; or, in other words, that a 

 Divine providence is discernible throughout the history of mankind. 

 It is a philosophy of history which he endeavours to establish. After 

 having laid down his principles, he proceeds to divide history into great 

 cycles or periods, to show the characteristic features of each, and the 

 organic progression and transition from the one to the other. He 

 accomplishes this partly by appealing to the facts of history, and 

 partly to general principles ; and while on the one hand he obtains 

 results which are profound and true, on the other hand he makes 

 assertions which are visionary and fanciful. It is a remarkable cir- 

 cumstance that Vico has stated in broad outlines things which F. A. 

 Wolf and Niebuhr afterwards reached by totally different processes 

 and without having any knowledge of the views of Vico : Wolf, in 

 regard to the Homeric poems ; and Niebuhr, in regard to the early 

 history of Rome. It betrays a want of the knowledge of facts to 

 assert, as some do, that Montesquieu, or Wolf, or Niebuhr adopted 

 the views of Vico : they could not adopt what they did not know. 

 Besides the ' Scienza Nuova,' Vico wrote some other works, which 

 bear the impress of his original genius : 1, ' De Antiquissma Italoruui 

 Sapientia,' Naples, 1710, translated into Italian by Monti, Milan, 1816. 

 2, 'De uno Universi Juris Principio et fine uno,' Naples, 4to, 1720. 3. 

 A Life of himself, which is prefixed to the first edition of his ' New 

 Science,' and is reprinted, with additions by himself and his son, in 

 the subsequent editions of the same work. A collection of all his 

 works was edited by the Marquis de Villa Rosa, at Naples, in 1818, 

 and a second edition appeared in 1835. A clear and able exposition 

 of the 'New Science' has been given by Michelet, 'Principes de la 

 Philosophic de 1'Histoire, traduits de la "Scieuza Nuova" de G. B. 

 Vico,' Paris 1827. 



VICQ-D'AZYR, FELIX, was born at Valogne in 1748. His father, 

 who was a physician of good repute, sent him to study philosophy at 

 Caen and medicine at Paris. He received his licence to practise in 

 1773, and directly after began to deliver lectures on comparative 

 anatomy, during the vacation from the regular courses of lectures of 

 the faculty. In consequence however of some dispute with the 

 authorities of the faculty, he was obliged to discontinue his course, 

 though already he had become a very popular teacher. Upon thi*, 

 Antoine Petit, who had been Vicq-d'Azyr's instructor in anatomy, 

 resigned the professorship of anatomy at the Jai'dhi des Plantes, 

 hoping to secure the appointment of his pupil to be his successor. In 

 this however he was disappointed. Portal, through the influence of 

 Buffon, was elected, and Vicq-d'Azyr was obliged to limit himself to 

 the delivering of lectures in his own house. These were well attended, 

 but the greatest assistance to his advancement was furnished by his 

 marriage with a niece of Daubeuton, who fell in love with him in 

 return for his politeness in assisting her when she once fainted in the 

 street. Daubenton furnished him with all that was necessary for the 

 prosecution of comparative anatomy and natural history, iu which he 

 was actively engaged, and the results of which he published iu 

 numerous essays in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. 



In 1774 Vicq-d'Azyr was elected a member of the Academy of 

 Sciences ; and in 1775, through the influence of Lassonne, he was 

 sent to investigate and endeavour to exterminate a murrain which was 

 raging among the cattle in the south of France. On his return he 

 formed with Lassonne the scheme of establishing a society for 

 carrying on at all times similar investigations of epidemics, &c., by 

 correspondence with provincial physicians ; and upon their plau the 

 Royal Society of Medicine was founded in 1776, and Vicq-d'Azyr was 

 chosen perpetual secretary. This engaged him for a time iu an angry 

 dispute with the faculty of medicine, who appear to have done their 

 best to destroy his reputation ; but his activity, aud the general excel- 

 lence of the numerous essays, dloges, and other works which he was 

 constantly publishing, as well as the spirit and care with which the 

 society was managed, obtained for him a constantly increasing cele- 

 brity, and in 1788 he was chosen to succeed Buffon in the French 

 Academy. His oration in honour of his predecessor is the most 

 remarkable of all (and they were very numerous) that Vicq-d'Azyr 

 delivered in honour of men of science. In 1789 he succeeded 

 Lassonne as first physician to the queen, and it is said that his devotion 

 to her gave him reason to fear the rage of the revolutionary party so 

 much that, through continual anxiety, his health began to fail To 

 avoid suspicion he took part with the followers of Robespierre, and 

 having accompanied the citizens of his district to the impious mockery 

 of the festival of the Supreme Being, he returned home seriously ill, 

 next day became delirious, and died on the 20th of June 1791. 



