30 THE PROBLEM IN TAINE 



a separate method for study and a separate faculty of the soul for 

 comprehension. 107 In this respect, he was not only attempting to 

 answer a challenge of his own generation, but perhaps has a 

 message for ours. 



Taine Returns to Paris: A Critic with a Method 



This year in the provinces resulted in important clarifications 

 of Taine's position, despite a milieu of political crisis and personal 

 reverses. An acid comment on his painful experiences, in a letter 

 to his sister Sophie, was characteristic: 'Ah! how much nastiness 

 and how many consecrated platitudes have I seen since two years 

 ago! It would be distressing, if it were not ridiculous.' los When a 

 third offer from the Ministry turned out to be of an even lower 

 calibre than the first two, indicating clearly that his services were 

 no longer in demand, he returned to Paris from Poitiers, after a 

 brief visit to the old homestead in Vouziers, and settled down to 

 the literary career for which he was so eminently suited. 



The foregoing analysis of the philosophical foundations of 

 Taine's thought has had the intrinsic interest inherent in the 

 spectacle of any sensitive mind's struggles for understanding; and 

 has helped prepare the stage for further critical discussion of his 

 method. Above all, it should correct the impression created by 

 many students who have been so taken by exaggerations of 

 evolutionism that they have failed to perceive the organic unity 

 which underlay Taine's complexities and seeming contradictions. 



Generally speaking, no radical innovations were introduced 

 by Taine in the decades of fruitful criticism which began with his 

 return to Paris. All the chief elements of his philosophy had already 

 been explored: considered en masse, they constituted a unified and 

 powerful system, whose utility (and limitations) as a critical tool 

 must, in the last analysis, be judged by the works which it pro- 

 duced. The method of abstraction, and the formula of race, 

 environment, and time; history and psychology, with their 

 concepts of development and master faculty; the recognition of 

 ideal types and 'the eternal axiom' of causality — we have en- 

 countered them all, in their formative stages; and, despite minor 

 refinements and changes in emphasis, Taine never changed his 

 essential position on these central points. ^^'^ 



