CRITIQUE OF ABSTRACTION 57 



essence, nature, and force. He proposed here, as in the later essay, 

 that the French seek out the middle way between the spiritualists 

 and the positivists, summed up in the Spinozist position: '. . . if 

 one should prove that the order of the causes is identical with the 

 order of the facts, one should refute them all at the same time.'^i 

 The function of analysis would be to get behind the metaphors of 

 language by making more precise our knowledge of real causes: 

 'By measuring the tenth parts of a second, one calculates the 

 distance of stars from the earth. By presenting the idea of cause in a 

 precise way, one can renovate one's idea of the Universe.' ^2 

 Taine was re-emphasizing the necessity of completing science by 

 metaphysical analysis 'which brings these laws and these types 

 back to some universal formula'. ^ 3 



^ False" and ' True^ Abstractions 



In sum, the seeming contradictions in Taine's use of abstrac- 

 tion are superficial. He made, consistently, what amounted to a 

 distinction between 'false abstractions' and 'true abstractions'. 

 When he criticized Livy and Cousin for their abstractness, he was 

 referring to the former, which involved a loss of the qualities of 

 life and reality. Thus, in 1856, when he wrote The Classic Philo- 

 sophers, Taine felt that the 'official' philosophy of eclecticism was 

 played out, a sterile 'faith' and not a means to discovery. The 

 younger generation was turning from false abstractions (that is, 

 empty words) to facts,^"^ and not even the scientifically grounded 

 systems of men like Ampere and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire seemed 

 more than tentative. The taste for analysis was returning, and the 

 'vague aspirations' and 'large words' of Hugo and Lamartine 

 already seemed dated, of another generation. The model for the 

 future would be 'the greatest psychologist of the century, Henri 

 Beyle', master of the 'precise little phrases'. ^^ However, Taine 

 was not given to prophecy; he preferred rather to point a direction, 

 and that was the direction of positive science, whose progress was 

 slow but sure: 'Before knowing a truth, one must traverse ten 

 errors.' ^6 Though its truths were more laboriously acquired than 

 those of the Romantic idealists, they were carved in stone. 



On the other hand, when Taine wrote a defence of abstraction 

 in his criticism of Mill he was referring to the kind of abstraction 

 which he thought was a necessary part of scientific method. He 

 was defending the possibility of metaphysics and a philosophical 

 approach to criticism. 



