20 THE PROBLEM IN TAINE 



of A. It is the same. There is therefore only one reaUty, of which 

 A and B are diverse forms. That is Being, and that is how our 

 idea of Being is born. It springs from each of our perceptions just 

 as from the sight of a circle, of a square, of a triangle, of figures of 

 various extents, springs our idea of extension; just as from the 

 consciousness of my successive acts, springs the notion of the self 

 of which they are the manifestation.' "^^ 



Thus, Taine thought, he had made the necessary transition from 

 pure deduction to a new method of induction combined with 

 abstraction: 'The proposition par excellence would be that which 

 would unite the two qualities of necessity and of reality. It would 

 disentangle an identity at the same time that it would prove an 

 existence. '"^1 



Clearly, the development of this conception of method was 

 closely involved with a metaphysical position towards which 

 Taine had been groping. The existential question implied more 

 than 'pure essences' and raised the problem of raison d'etre; the 

 Absolute would have to be more than a mere logical construct 

 or possibility and represent rather a real 'power' or 'force'. ^^^ 

 Taine's goal remained abstract, but his point of departure was now 

 thoroughly empirical: 'We will construct the route by which man 

 passes from a particular perception, to the affirmation of the 

 absolute.'43 



To construct this route, Taine threaded his way, cautiously 

 and with nice discrimination, among the various systems he had 

 inherited. The metaphysical position at which he finally arrived 

 combined elements of Platonism and Aristotelianism, realism, and 

 nominalism; and Hegel was criticized because, for him, 'All 

 reality is in thought. ''^'^ As usual, Taine ended with his focus in 

 psychology: 'It is very true that Thought passes from a shrouded 

 totality to a clear totality via the dialectical process. But that is 

 human thought, the thought of a worldly being, which is indeed 

 the image of the world, but not of the movement of all things. '"'^ 

 Our ideas may give us a true image of the world, but they are 

 never complete, and they are not the world. "^^ 



At this point, we may recall the question with which Taine had 

 qualified his solution of the problem of deduction in the 'Notes' 

 of the previous year: '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. '47 His attempt to analyze the element of 



