NATURE AND CONDITIONS OF ART 75 



aesthetic system which 'differs from the ancient, inasmuch as it is 

 historic, and not dogmatic; that is to say, it imposes no precepts, 

 but ascertains and verifies laws'. ^ Finally, the stage of philosophic 

 synthesis is reached: the proof of experience is completed by that 

 of reason, which 'consists in showing this dependence^ to be not 

 only rigorous in point of fact, but, again, that it is so through 

 necessity'. 5 



Before considering the details of Taine's Philosophy of Art, we 

 may recall briefly his previous attempts in that direction. There 

 were the usual student papers, ^ and the La Fontaine was really 'an 

 essay on Beauty', "^ the original summary chapter of which had 

 been headed: 'The Conditions of Beauty'. The 'Conclusion' 

 which was written for the 1861 revisions contained what was 

 substantially a capsule statement of the position taken five years 

 later in the Lectures on Art: 



'I wanted to display the complete formation of a poetic work 

 and to try to find by means of an example wherein beauty con- 

 sists and how it is born. 



'A race is found which has received its character from the 

 climate, the soil, the elements, and the great events which it 

 underwent at its origin. This character has adapted it and 

 reduced it to the cultivation of a certain spirit as well as to the 

 conception of a certain beauty. That is the national soil, very good 

 for certain plants, but very bad for others, unable to bring to 

 maturity the seeds of the neighbouring country, but capable of 

 giving to its own an exquisite sap and a perfect efflorescence, 

 when the course of the centuries brings about the temperature 

 which they need. Thus were born La Fontaine in France in the 

 seventeenth century, Shakespeare in England during the Renais- 

 sance, Goethe in the Germany of our day. 



'For genius is nothing but a power developed, and no power 

 can develop completely, except in the country where it finds 

 itself naturally and completely at home, where education nourishes 

 it, where example makes it strong, where character sustains it, 

 where the public challenges it. . . . The more perfect a poet, the 

 more national he is. The more he penetrates into his art, the more 

 he has penetrated into the genius of his age and of his race. 

 Because of this correspondence among the work of art, the country, 

 and the age, a great artist is a public man. By it one can take 

 his measure and assign him his rank. By it he pleases more or less 



