22 THE PROBLEM IN TAINE 



ideas, the latter being 'beginnings of acts') conflict, necessitating a 

 choice: 



'They are opposed to one another, the tendencies enter into 

 conflict: that is dehberation. Then that fluctuation ceases, a 

 tendency has emerged victorious; my entire being, hitherto 

 divided, is concentrated on one single point, oriented in a single 

 direction. At that moment, my will is determined. ... Its nature, 

 being general and not restricted, contains within itself possibilities 

 of all sorts. In this sense, it is free.'^^ 



But, whatever our sensations of willing to choose freely, our 

 choice is determined: 'There is a reason even for a caprice. Within 

 us, as without, everything is a product; exceptions, anomalies, and 

 monstrosities are such as a result of laws as regular as those from 

 which originate the most regular of beings and facts. . . .'^5 

 This is an approach to freedom which later psychologists have 

 generally accepted: 'There is a reason even for a caprice' might 

 well have been taken as the motto of Freud's Psychopathology of 

 Everyday Life. 



Taine's concept of freedom was like that of Freud in this respect 

 also: it was no longer the simple one of the rationalists, for whom 

 every being naturally seeks its own good; instead, he had come to 

 realize the large part which irrational motives and tendencies 

 play in determining behaviour. Freedom, however, still had 

 meaning to the extent that choices were made from within, with- 

 out external constraints: 'There is nothing passive here; there is 

 no other cause for my action besides myself. The more voluntary 

 the action is, the more this is so. . . . It is the pure and perfect 

 exercise of my internal energy, put into motion by an idea.'^^ 

 In this manner, by psychological analysis, Taine attempted to 

 reconcile the idea of cause with that of moral responsibility: 

 'Thus, from our analysis we arrive at the raison d'etre and efficacy 

 of morality. '5 7 Despite the fact of determinism, or rather because 

 of it, we are morally responsible for the results of our own 

 psychologies. 58 



The complexity of Taine's concept of determination in the 

 'moral sciences' was evident also in his tendency to replace the 

 idea of 'cause' by that of 'condition'. One of his American critics 

 wrote: 'Taine nearly solved the problem of art and so of poetry. 

 Had he simply called his milieu^ his place and time and race, condi- 

 tions and not causes ... he would have achieved the whole 



