FORMATION OF A METHOD (1828-1852) 31 



NOTES 



iChevrillon, Taine (hereafter referred to as 'Chevrillon'), especially Part 

 Two: 'Trois Annees de Pensee', pp. 51-155. 



2 H. Taine, Sa Vie et sa correspondance [Life and Letters, hereafter referred to as 

 'F. & C:), I, 123-124. 



The passages quoted from the following works have been translated by the 

 present author: Chevrillon; V. & C; Taine, La Fontaine, Les Philosophes 

 classiques, Essai sur Tite-Live, Essais de critique et d'histoire, Nouveaux Essais, and 

 £tienne Mayran; Giraud, Essai sur Taine and 'La philosophie de Taine'; and 

 Rosea, L' Influence de Hegel sur Taine. In all other cases the initials 'S. J.K' have 

 been added to indicate translation. 



3 Schaepdryver, Hippolyte Taine, pp. 97, 113. 



4 Ibid., p. 158. 



5 V. & a, I, 8-9. 



6 V. & a, I, 7-8. 



7 V. & C, I, 161. 



8 V. & C, I, 10. 



9 Giraud, Essai sur Taine, p. 2. 



10 Published posthumously, with a Preface by Paul Bourget, Paris, igio. 



11 Ibid., p. 57. 



12 V. & C, I, ^10, to Edouard de Suckau. 



13 Among his fellow students were Emile Planat (called 'Marcelin'), founder 

 of La Vie Parisienne; Charles Crosnier de Varigny; Lucien Anatole Prevost- 

 Paradol; Cornelis de Witt; fimile Durier; and fimile Saigey (F. & C, I, 



13-14)- 



14 V. & C, I, 14. 



15 Giraud, op. cit., pp. 12-14. 



16 V. & C, I, 20-26. 



17 Op. cit., p. 39. 



18 George Saintsbury makes this the core of his criticism of Taine: 'Hippolyte 

 Taine was a critic, though too often (not always) a "black horseman" of criti- 

 cism. He was a great aesthetician, he was a brilliant literary historian — that is 

 to say, what should be a critic on the greatest scale. . . . Taine is, therefore, the 

 capital example of the harm which may be done by what is called "philosophy" 

 in criticism. If he had resisted this tendency, and had allowed himself simply to 

 receive and assimilate the facts, he might have been one of the great critics of 

 the world' {A History of Criticism, III, pp. 440-441). But he would not have 

 been Taine! 



19 Writing in 1928, D. D. Rosea pointed out that 'one must admit that one 

 recognizes the trace of his influence a little everywhere: in literary criticism 

 above all, in psychology, in sociology, in history, in literature properly speaking, 

 and even in philosophy in the strict sense of the word, though here it is less 

 considerable than in the other domains' {U Influence de Hegel sur Taine, p. 23). 

 The popularity of such works as the History of English Literature and the Lectures 

 on Art was so great, and the impact of his doctrines through such media as 

 Zola's novels and other works of naturalistic creation and criticism was so 

 widespread, that the philosopher has almost been lost to sight, at least in 

 English-speaking countries. 



