HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY 63 



of more realistic drama, i^ In brief, the abstractions of the artist, 

 like those of the scientist — and the historian is both — must con- 

 form to Taine's conception of^ true, as against false, abstractions. 



As a natural consequence of his method, this analysis provided 

 Taine with the criterion he needed for determining, in the 

 fashion the announcement of the competition by the French 

 Academy had required, 'what rank he (Livy) occupies among the 

 great models of antiquity'. ^^ Livy was at the opposite extreme 

 from the moderns, who sometimes tend to make of history a mere 

 string of anecdotes: 'The moderns devote themselves too much to 

 science and particular details; Livy, to art and general traits. '20 

 But the full implications of this judgment should become clearer 

 when we consider more fully the relations between analysis and 

 judgment in Taine (Part Three). 



Suffice it to say, for the present, that the same issues were very 

 much in evidence in the Critical and Historical Essays which Taine 

 wrote during 1855- 1857 and published early in 1858. For 

 example, in his essays on Michelet he describes the critic as 'the 

 naturalist of the soul', 21 and, praising Michelet's History of France 

 chiefly as a kind of epic poem, he finds it lacking in scientific 

 rigour: 'True, history is an art, but it is also a science.' 22 



Notable in this volume of essays is a critical relativism which 

 seems to belie Taine's use of a scale of values in the 'Conclusion' 

 oi Livy. Thus, in the essay on 'Philosophic Religieuse', he writes: 

 'Let us then separate science from poetry and practical morality, 

 as we have separated it from religion . . .'23 and the article on 

 'Madame de la Fayette' stresses the fact that each age is unique 

 and produces works appropriate to its special needs. But such 

 remarks are not to be taken as denying the importance of either 

 science or judgment in criticism of literature. The first is intended 

 to prevent the abuse, not the use, of science — to expose the fallacy 

 of those who, like the figures treated in The Classic Philosophers, 

 seek in religion a substitute for science, saying: 'My dream is 

 pleasant, therefore it is true.' 24 The second is intended to assert 

 the freedom of the modern artist in creating new forms of his 

 own and to strike a happy balance in the perennial struggle of 

 the Ancients versus the Moderns: 'History should be respectful 

 and art should be original. We should admire what we have and 

 what we lack; we should do things diflferently from our ancestors 

 and praise that which our ancestors have done. '25 The article on 

 'M. Troplong et M. de Montalembert' makes clear that what 



