SCIENCE VERSUS CRITICISM? 7 



serious than the argument ad hominem, however, would be the 

 question, not of Taine's individual personality nor of the psycho- 

 logical method in general, but of Taine's particular position as a 

 psychologist and of its specific relations to his theory of criticism. 

 The latter questions will be given due consideration in a later 

 connection (Chapter IX). 



The socio-historical critics are equally suggestive, though they 

 too lead us into issues not directly related to our central theme. 

 From a twentieth-century perspective especially, which includes 

 the facts of two World Wars and continuing struggle between 

 East and West in Europe, it is easy to see why Taine was so keenly 

 aware of the national issue. For him, France was situated 

 intellectually, as well as geographically, at a point mid-way 

 between the extremes of England and Germany. Thus, for 

 Lucien Levy-Bruhl, 'Taine assumes an intermediate position 

 between realism and idealism, in accordance with his general 

 attitude between empiricism and rationalism. He is a realist in 

 principle, since he defines art as the imitation of nature; but he is 

 also an idealist when he adds that the object of this imitation is to 

 express the essence of things by means of their "essential charac- 

 teristic".' 1"^ Taine's realism is accounted for by his interest in the 

 English tradition, though it also had its roots in the French 

 'ideologues' 15; his idealism drew him to German metaphysics, 

 especially Hegel. Whether there remained in Taine 'an ineradicable 

 taint of duality', or whether he succeeded, as he thought he had, 

 in maintaining 'a Spinozian or Hegelian view of the universe' and 

 thus bridging what he considered to be the gap between England 

 and Germany, is an issue on which Levy-Bruhl's judgment is not 

 decisive. 16 



As has already been suggested, Taine's works mirror conflicts 

 internal to France as well as those involved in her relations with 

 her neighbours. Thus, Edmund Wilson, in a work concerned with 

 the writing of history, treats Taine under the heading, 'Decline of 

 the Revolutionary Tradition', and points out that 'there was little 

 moral inspiration for Taine in the France of the Second Empire'. ^^ 

 Paul Janet, fairly typical of the semi-official, conservative philo- 

 sophy under Louis-Napoleon, saw Taine as a positivist wearing 

 the cloak of idealism and engaged in a fruitless attempt to recon- 

 cile Hegel and Condillac; his conclusion was that 'in this we find 

 the very negation of all metaphysics, and, I believe I may add, 

 also of all morality,' 18 



