Pagina 31 - BCSV, XXXV, 2005

THE IMACINATIVE UNIVERSA!. 31
Diana, for example, is createci by thè imagination and is thè third major
deity (i.e. she is water)50. In respect of being an imagined entity, she is in
no way different from Jove. But how thè existence of this imaginary en­
tity relates to thè way in which poetic man goes about thè actual busi­
ness of recognising, finding and acquiring thè reai water which is an es-
sential ingredient of sustainable life and which he falsely takes to be Di­
ana is left entirely unexplained. But this is a serious omission. There is
no difficulty in accepting Vico’s explanation of how poetic man carne to
create imaginative personifications, i.e. thè gods and goddesses, related
to these classes of things, if these divinities are thought of as transcen­
dent beings who control thè world, but this is possible only if poetic man
can identify and distinguish these things for what they are, i.e. water as
water and not as food, and food as food and not as water. This is both a
causai and a logicai necessity. It is a causai necessity for, if thè giants, or
their successors, lacked thè perceptual means to distinguish, identify and
re-identify such necessities as water, edible substances and so on, they
would be in no position to do anything, imaginative or otherwise. But it
is also a logicai necessity for it is not possible to maintain that thè poets
identified water as, or with, Diana unless they were capable of identify-
ing different examples of water as examples of thè same kind of thing.
Thus, Vico’s attempt to replace thè conceptual language of later ages by
a language available to creatures who had no conceptual powers pre-sup-
poses thè conception he wants to reject. These, I assume, are some of thè
fundamental aspects of life to which Croce was referring when he criti-
cised Vico for over-extending thè role of imagination in thè life of poet­
ic man and neglecting thè fact that thè giants or thè early men were crea­
tures of flesh and bone, who needed powers of imagination and intellect,
perception and abstraction, thè ability to count and so on, to have any
sort of existence at all, creatures who could not therefore be charac-
terised coherently in terms solely of thè first form of mind.
6. The position as described so far raises a question of fundamental
importance51. For it is clear that thè capacity to identify similarities and
differences in thè reai, as opposed to thè imagined, world, would fall
within thè remit of thè faculty of ingenium, «thè faculty that connects
operating, since it is at this point that thè plebs begin to question thè alleged semi-divine ori-
gin of thè heroes.
™Sn44, § 528 .
51 The necessity to address this problem has been pointed out to me in private corre-
spondence by Dr. Donato Mansueto, who is not responsible for thè way in which I have tried
to do so.