FORMATION OF A METHOD (1828-1852) 29 



greater concreteness of the notion in respect to the doctrine of 



essence. 



100 



Spinoza and Hegel were agreed in seeking, not abstractness, but 

 concreteness, each in his special way. However, Taine wanted, as 

 we have seen, not possibilities, but existences; not 'as Hegel says, 

 the Idea in process, . . . but indeed Being (absolute) made mani- 

 fest (absolutely)'. 101 He believed in the existence of something 

 like Hegel's 'concrete universal', but he was not content to spin 

 out 'an arbitrary hierarchy of logical generalities' ^ 02 j instead, he 

 thought, universals were to be found in nature, as ideal types or 

 species of existence. His 'concreteness' was not one merely of a 

 coherent system, lacking in internal contradiction, but rather that 

 of essential characteristics which corresponded With, reality. Whereas 

 Spinoza and Hegel, desiring concreteness, remained with their 

 geometrical abstractions and 'bloodless categories', Taine hoped 

 to start from particulars, or at least our perceptions of them, and, 

 by a process of abstraction, work towards the universals without 

 leaving the concreteness of the initial perceptions behind. With 

 him, 'abstraction' was both a noun and a verbA^^ 



The methodological points on which Taine parted company 

 with Hegel were the latter's use of 5^^n^ (concept or notion) and 

 his distinction between Reason (Vernunft) and Understanding 

 [Verstand)A^^ He did so because in his version of induction, the 

 same function which Hegel had assigned to Vernunft could be per- 

 formed by the scientific method of abstraction, going from the 

 individual instance to the generalization, from the particular to 

 the universal — granted, of course, the 'external axiom' of 

 causality. 105 



'Intelligibility, according to the master, means internal identity 

 of dissimilar terms, identity of ever richer determinations, concilia- 

 tion of contraries, nay even of contradictories, synthesis of the 

 universal and the individual; intelligibility, according to the 

 disciple, signifies absolute elimination of one of the terms and 

 exclusive affirmation of the other, sacrifice of that which is 

 particular, individual, to the advantage of that which is general, 

 universal.' 10 6 



In this way, perhaps at some sacrifice of subtlety as a critic, Taine 

 kept the problems of philosophy and art from being relegated to a 

 unique realm, distinct from that of science and therefore requiring 



