64 ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM 



Taine is objecting to is the kind of 'history' whose sole purpose is 

 to bolster up the writer's particular bias, whether it be democratic 

 or aristocratic. His relativism^fi does not deny the possibility of a 

 hierarchy of values — a point of view, so to speak, from which 

 points of view themselves may be judged. 



^Introduction' to 'History of English Literature' 



The classic statement of Taine's philosophy of history, as of the 

 historical method in the criticism of literature generally, is the 

 deservedly famous 'Introduction' to the History of English Literature. 

 This essay, which first appeared as an article on 'History, Its 

 Present and Future' (December, 1863), has a double importance. 

 First, it summed up an important movement in modern thought, 

 as its opening words indicate: 'History has been transformed, 

 within a hundred years in Germany, within sixty years in France, 

 and that by the study of their literatures.' ^7 Second, it was one of 

 the earliest, and is still one of the clearest, statements of the 

 historical approach to the study of literature. 



What Taine clarified here, and attempted to exemplify in his 

 pioneering History, was the relations between science and imagina- 

 tion — more specifically, the social sciences and the humanities — 

 which have their focus in a psychology of history. He begins by 

 saying that 'you study the document only in order to know the 

 man' 28; and the document is, of course, the literary text — or the 

 painting, or work of sculpture, in other connections, 'This is the 

 first step in history: it was made in Europe at the new birth of 

 imagination, toward the close of the last century, by Lessing and 

 Walter Scott; a httle later in France, by Chateaubriand, Augustin 

 Thierry, Michelet, and others. '^9 



Taine soon passes to his main concern, which is psychology: 

 'When you consider with your eyes the visible man, what do you 

 look for? The man invisible. The words which enter your ears, 

 the gestures, the motions of his head, the clothes he wears, visible 

 acts and deeds of every kind, are expressions merely; somewhat is 

 revealed beneath them, and that is a soul.'^o Referring to Herder, 

 Otfried Muller, and Goethe as the pioneers of that method, he 

 cites two recent works — Carlyle's Cromwell and Sainte-Beuve's 

 Port-Royal — as models of its use, and Sainte-Beuve as its greatest 

 exponent. 31 



However, a third level of analysis is indicated — recalling the 

 distinction Taine made in the 'Preface' to the first edition of the 



