SOURCE: "Benedetto Croce as a Foil to R. G. Collingwood," in The Formative Years of R. G. Collingwood, Martinus Nijhoff, 1967, pp. 68-80.

In the following excerpt, Johnston focuses on the philosophical career of Benedetto Croce in relation to Collingwood's development as a philosopher

(1) croce and Collingwood: a Comparison

Benedetto Croce is the contemporary thinker whom early Collingwood most resembles. As we shall see, this is true especially of Croce's writings from 1901 to 1910. Whether the resemblance is owing to Croce's direct influence upon Collingwood or to Vico's influence upon both Croce and Collingwood is one of those problems of affiliation which are so elusive in the case of Collingwood (and also of Croce). That Collingwood felt a certain affinity with Croce is abundantly clear. In 1921, for example, Collingwood wrote to Croce:

This I say because some things in the paper look like the observations of a hostile critic, and...