FORMATION OF A METHOD (1828-1852) 19 



connection of things is the same as the order and connection of 

 ideas. '35 



The Problem of Method: From Induction to the Absolute 



On the basis of many notebooks preserved from his second year 

 at the Normal School, we see that the problem of method for 

 Taine become that of induction, namely, how we pass from our 

 limited perceptions to true conceptions, ^ 6 and ultimately to a 

 grasp of the Absolute. Again, the rationalist tradition was under 

 fire in papers on Descartes and Aristotle's Posterior Analytics .^'^ 

 But the methodological issue could not be separated from that of 

 causation: 'Isn't there also needed a cause which will make the 

 manifestation pass from the state of power into the state of action? 

 That question is overwhelming, but I do not despair of resolving 



it.'38 



Finally, after much questioning, in a notebook headed Philo- 

 sophies dogmatisme, Taine arrived at the following conclusion: 



'. . . If the nature of Being qua Being taken in any one of its 

 parts whatsoever is manifested, Being in its entirety is 

 manifested. Because if the essence is manifested, that is a result of 

 the nature of the absolute which is at once essence and mani- 

 festation, so that one cannot move without the other. And 

 thus one knows the nature of the absolute, which is the union of 

 the two. 



'There the problem is solved. 



'I want to do no more than to take account of this inductive 

 procedure in order to know whether it is only a form of 

 deduction.' 39 



How can we arrive inductively at real definitions of 'essences'? 

 Starting from perceptions of concrete particulars, we abstract 

 their general traits, as described in the following passage from the 

 Dogma, Metaphysics notebook: 



'I perceive a thing A; I eliminate all of its determinations; there 

 remains the fact that it is. We are not studying here the psycho- 

 logical phenomenon of perception; it is a fact that as soon as we 

 perceive, we affirm a real thing, an existence. Let another object 

 B be perceived; I strip it likewise of all its own particularities; 

 there remains the fact again that it is. This reality, which is pure 

 because it is completely abstract, is absolutely identical with that 



