CHAPTER III 



ANALYSIS AND SYNTHESIS 



' The Classic Philosophers'" 



BY 1856, four years after his return to Paris from Poitiers, 

 Taine's literary reputation was already a considerable one. 

 ' He was the author of three successful books: a doctoral 

 Essay on the Fables of La Fontaine, which was already in its second 

 edition; an Essay on Livy, which, after some opposition, had been 

 awarded a prize by the French Academy and had finally been 

 published; and a travel book. Voyage to the Pyrenees, which had proven 

 to be exceptionally popular and had firmly established a friendly 

 relationship with the publishing house of Hachette. His critical 

 essays had been appearing in the Revue de ITnstruction publique and 

 the Revue des Deux Mondes since early in 1855, and had attracted 

 much favourable attention. This success emboldened him to 

 write a volume on The Classic Philosophers of the igth Century in 

 France which was both a critique of prevailing trends and a bold 

 manifesto exemplifying and expounding his own naturalistic 

 philosophy of criticism. 



Sainte-Beuve wrote well when he characterized this book as 

 'a tour de force, and a serious one'.i Neither the method nor the 

 fundamental ideas were substantially diflferent from those which 

 Taine had developed as a student in Normal School; indeed, 

 Sainte-Beuve began his first article on Taine — occasioned by 

 publication of The Classic Philosophers and summarizing Taine's 

 production to date — by applying to the young critic his own 

 method and indicating how typically he represented that parti- 

 cular academic milieu. The older man, both impressed and some- 

 what taken aback by this 'scientific' prodigy, remarked that 

 most students, fresh from the Ph.D. mill, are hke that: 'one had 

 one's method, one's order of battle. . . .'2 



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