FORMATION OF A METHOD (1828-1852) 27 



Spinoza versus Hegel: Paradox and Solution 



Despite these difficulties with his academic theses, Taine found 

 time for an intensive study of Hegel. On the whole, this process 

 tended to confirm certain basic tenets of his thought which he 

 originally derived from Spinoza. He found in Hegel the same sort 

 of Universe, determined by formulas of a geometric order of 

 abstraction,^^ and the same assumption of the rationaUty of the 

 universe which, as we have seen, supplies the key to Taine's 

 entire metaphysics. ^^^ During this troubled year, he found real 

 consolation and sustenance of spirit in his reading of 'the Ger- 

 mans', by which term he referred chiefly to Hegel, but also to 

 Schelling. They seemed to him then to live in another, and more 

 fruitful, world of ideas, which provided a necessary antidote to the 

 empirical and 'English' habit of mind.^^ Obviously, many ele- 

 ments in the early formulations of Taine's method which have 

 already been sketched — especially the concern with 'notion' or 

 'concept' (Hegel's Begriff), with system and totality, with the 

 'absolute' (Hegel's equivalent for Spinoza's 'substance'), with 

 freedom as the recognition of inner necessity, and with 'philosophy 

 of history' — indicate areas of profound indebtedness to the German 

 master. At what points, and why, did Taine part company with 

 him?86 What were the philosophic issues involved? 



We have already seen, from his 'First Views of Hegel' and 

 notebook on the 'History of Philosophy', that Taine's criticisms 

 of Hegel were both metaphysical and methodological. The meta- 

 physical issue has been illuminated by Henry Alonzo Myers' sug- 

 gestive work on The Spinoza-Hegel Paradox: A study of the choice 

 between traditional idealism and systematic pluralism, which is an 

 analysis of 'the historical puzzle of two philosophers who start 

 with the same premises and come to diametrically opposed con- 

 clusions. '^"7 Myers documents in some detail Hegel's indebtedness 

 to Spinoza^s and the large number of basic propositions on which 

 the two agreed. 8 9 ^^^ j^g ^Jsq distinguishes their differences, and 

 it is these which should help us to understand what Taine 

 accepted, and what he rejected, in Hegel. 



The most essential antitheses between Spinozism and Hegelian- 

 ism are given as those (i) between formal and final causes; 

 (2) between contemplation and activity; and (3) between 'the 

 eternal concatenation of geometrical forms and the stages of 

 organic growth'. ^o As we have seen, Taine retained Spinoza's 



