HISTORY AND PSYCHOLOGY 65 



Essays, which he wrote in answer to Sainte-Beuve's criticisms — 

 namely, the level of philosophy: 'Is Psychology only a series of 

 observations? No; here as elsewhere we must search out the causes 

 after we have collected the facts. No matter if the facts be physical 

 or moral, they all have their causes; there is a cause for ambition, 

 for courage, for truth, as there is for digestion, for muscular move- 

 ment, for animal heat. Vice and virtue are products, like vitriol 

 and sugar; and every complex phenomenon arises from other 

 more simple phenomena on which it depends.' ^2 In its context 

 — and its critics are very fond of quoting it out of context33 — the 

 remark about 'vice and virtue' here makes eminently good sense. 



Note, again, the abstracting tendency of Taine's thought. 

 Starting with the particular documents of literature, he has moved 

 inductively, by gradual stages, to the greatest generality of a 

 synthetic idea: 'Here He the grand causes, for they are the uni- 

 versal and permanent causes, present at every moment and in 

 every case, everywhere and always acting, indestructible, and 

 finally infallibly supreme, since the accidents which thwart them, 

 being limited and partial, end by yielding to the dull and incessant 

 repetition of their efforts; in such a manner that the general 

 structure of things, and the grand features of events, are their work; 

 and religions, philosophies, poetries, industries, the framework of 

 society and of families, are in fact only the imprints stamped by 

 their seal.' As in the previous chapter, we find that, at the heart 

 of Taine's method, lies his belief in the existence of general causes 

 and natural types, in the possibihty of true abstractions: 'There 

 is, then, a system in human sentiments and ideas: and this system 

 has for its motive power certain general traits, certain charac- 

 teristics of the intellect and the heart common to men of one race, 

 age, or country.' ^4 



Back of the 'elementary moral state', which acts as a permanent 

 force, are the three general contributing causes of Taine's famous 

 formula: race, milieu, moment (race, environment, time). Each of 

 these will be given further consideration in later chapters; the 

 point to be emphasized here is the fact that, out of the complex 

 interplay of these forces, a type of psychology results: 'Man, forced 

 to accommodate himself to circumstances, contracts a tempera- 

 ment and a character corresponding to them. . . .'^^ 'Beside the 

 permanent impulse and the given surroundings, there is the 

 acquired momentum. When the national character and surround- 

 ing circumstances operate, it is not upon a tabula rasa, but on a 



S.A.J.— 5 



