THE MEANING OF THE ESTHETIC IMPULSE. 



221 



do exist, and are of great value, but this value belongs not to the 

 theoretical, but to the practical activity. " Evolution " is a pure 

 concept, " Chair " a pseudo-concept. For our purpose it is not 

 necessary to elaborate this point. 



What does interest us is the relation between the two theoretical 

 activities of the spirit — Intuition and Concept. They are 

 " Moments in the unity of a single process." Neither takes 

 a prior place. " We cannot think without universalizing, and 

 we cannot have an intuition without thinking." In other 

 words, they are related in a synthesis that is a priori. This 

 means that the intellectual activity which relates and generalizes 

 the intuitions or presentations does not depend on them, but 

 is as much a condition of experience as are the presentations 

 themselves. Each of the two things, the intuition and the 

 concept, is essential to knowledge ; the concept is empty of 

 content without the intuition, but you cannot have an intuition 

 without thinking it. The two form an indivisible, organic 

 unity ; neither is able to exist without the other. You cannot 

 think without universalizing, not intuit without thinking. This 

 is really the logical a priori synthesis discovered by Kant. But 

 Croce proceeds to use it in a wider sense, as we shall see. 



These two elements, then, the intuitional and the conceptual, 

 together constitute the whole theoretic activity of knowing. 



Now the first of these elements, the intuition, is expression 

 of a reality to the self. It is essentially aesthetic, for ^Esthetic 

 is the science of expressive activity. In forming an intuition, 

 and expressing it, we compass Beauty, for Beauty is expression. 



But there is another side to the activity of spirit. Thinking 

 and doing, willing and acting, go hand in hand. 



The practical activity begins as Economic, directed towards 

 particular ends. There is indi^ddual action ; but there is also 

 action universalized : directed to general ends : and this action 

 is Ethical. Utility passes over into goodness : there is no 

 good action which is not in some way useful, there is no useful 

 action which is not in some way good. 



Here again, then, we have two inseparable activities, related, 

 as are the theoretic activities, as a first and second degree, yet 

 each involving the other. The relation is identical with that 

 of the a priori syntheses, and the term may be extended to 

 cover this relation also. 



Finally, the two sides of the activity of the spirit, the theoretic 

 and the practical, are themselves related in this same double 



