Pagina 28 - BCSV, XLI, 2

LEON POMPA 28
physical pattern ceases to have any justification. But I remarked earlier
that Vico’s achievements cannot be limited to his work in the fields of
history and historical methodology and I would now like to amplify
what I take to be correct in his account of how historical change
occurs. There are two points to be noted here. First, if we accept that
we share the inherent rationality of human nature, it does not follow
that the historical world has been static. Human nature itself may not
have changed, but that is compatible with changes in human institu-
tions33. So a static conception of human nature is compatible with
change in the institutions and practices that figure in history, i.e. with
genuine historical change.
Secondly, Croce’s criticism of Vico’s concept of human nature
makes it possible to understand one of Vico’s more puzzling claims: his
insistence that men, i.e. the agents in human history, created their insti-
tutions ‘with intelligence’, a claim that would be difficult to reconcile
both with the earlier parts of the sequence of kinds of human nature
built into the ideal eternal history and with the all too frequent asser-
tion that in doing so they were simultaneously serving the aim of prov-
idence34. But if we approach the interpretation of history on the
assumption that the agents of history share our rationality, along with
such other features of human agency as desires intentions and so on35,
33 I am reluctant to suggest that all such change has been ‘progressive’ partly
because ‘progress’ is an essentially contested concept but also because some of the
tyrannical political structures and activities of the 20 th and 21 st centuries lend consid-
erable support to Vico’s claim that a strong seam of self-interest remains a prime moti-
vating factor in human behaviour. This is summarised at Sn44, 1108: «Men mean to
gratify their pleasures and abandon their off spring and they inaugurate the chastity of
marriage from which the families arise. The fathers mean to exercise without restraint
their paternal powers over their clients and the subject them to the civil powers from
which the cities arise. The reigning orders of nobles mean to abuse their lordly power
over the plebeians and they are obliged to submit to the laws which establish popular
liberty». There is no suggestion here of any motive other than the wilful intention to
abuse positions of political powers. See also Sn44, 341, where Vico writes: «But men,
because of their corrupted nature, are under the tyranny of self-love, which compels
them to make private utility their chief gain. Seeking everything useful for themselves
and nothing for their companions, they cannot bring their passions under control to
direct them towards justice». The rest of this passage continues in the same vein as that
quoted above.
34 Sn44, 342, 177-178.
35 It is notable that all attempts to decipher obscure or ancient scripts, be they are
alphabetic or ideographic, depend on the assumption that these are the products of