HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY 6i 



Talne uses the words interchangeably — which may be either 

 psychological or physiological. 



From these notes, which anticipate the essential doctrine of the 

 'Introduction' to the History of English Literature, we can gather, 

 first, the central position which psychology takes in Taine's 

 philosophy of history; and second, the extent to which he con- 

 ceived his enterprise to be a philosophical one: in whatever field 

 he studied, he was especially concerned with the species or type. 

 The transition from particulars to universals, via the process of 

 abstraction, was his perennial problem; and this chapter will 

 consider some of the forms which it took in his writings on history. 



History as Science and Art 



Taine's prize Essay on Livy (1853) was a dissertation on historical 

 method, as well as an application of that method to the ancient 

 Roman. The two parts of the book consider history, first as a 

 science, and then as an art, and in the discussion of both these 

 aspects of history the relations between particular facts and 

 philosophic generalizations are crucial. 



The first chapter (on 'Criticism') opens by striking this key- 

 note: 'A science contains particular facts which it establishes, and 

 general facts which it coordinates; history clarifies and collects, 

 by means of criticism, the truths of detail; by means of the philo- 

 sophic spirit, it shapes and sets in order the truths of the whole. ''^ 

 Criticism, like science, begins in a passion for 'the whole truth, 

 nothing but the truth'. ^ But it cannot rest content with scattered 

 facts; obviously, the past can never be fully reconstructed, and 

 the choice of details must be determined by some principles. 

 Niebuhr's History of Rome (1811-1830) was one of the first to 

 stress the concept of development, in the spirit of Vico. Taine 

 cites from Niebuhr a comparison of the work of an historian to 

 that of a 'naturalist' reconstructing fossils, ^ and derives from him 

 an emphasis on 'the grand traits', all that we can hope to recover 

 from the past: 'Across the distance, we only discover the large 

 masses and vast movements of the ancient ages. The particular 

 facts have perished; the general facts hold good, and the critic 

 makes a philosopher of himself in order to remain an historian. '"^ 



'Abstraction', again, is the key to Taine's exposition of 'La 

 Philosophic dans I'Histoire' (Chapter IV). Just as Newton could 

 see the law of gravity in the fall of an apple, so the historian 

 gathers his facts in order to search for the laws which underlie 



