PROBLEMS OF TYPE ANALYSIS 147 



carries on a sort of dialectical ballet, in which the concept finally 

 appears as 'the unity oi^ being and essence',^ the negation of a nega- 

 tion. In his first chapter he then breaks the general concept down 

 into 'the three factors of^ universality, particularity, and singularity'.^ 

 Clearly, he is not concerned, at least in the Subjective Logic, so 

 much with the relations between particulars and universals that 

 are found in nature — with existing realities like those which con- 

 stitute the subject-matters of the various sciences — as with the 

 concepts of particularity and universality, considered as categories 

 of a dialectical system. Now this dialectic Taine does not adopt, 

 though he does agree, as we have seen, with Hegel's general 

 Spinozistic assumption that 'The order and connection of things 

 is the same as the order and connection of ideas.' 



In general, Taine is much more concretely concerned than 

 Hegel with universals as empirical facts in the sciences; and 

 though he reaches somewhat similar conclusions, he claims to get 

 there by a diflferent route, namely, induction. His version of 

 scientific method is to start with the particular specimen, or per- 

 ception of that specimen, and arrive, after a process of abstraction 

 and elimination, at the presumed universal fact, such as the bio- 

 logical species or other natural type (for example, chemical ele- 

 ment, such as hydrogen; or psychological trait, such as 'oratorical 

 genius' or 'English character'). i^ 



Taine' s Position in ^On Intelligence' 



Taine's doctrine of universals is developed most systematically 

 in the last book of On Intelligence, on 'The Knowledge of General 

 Things'. There he begins by asserting, unequivocally, what seems 

 like the realist position that 'there are general things', or uni- 

 versals, 11 and then asks, concerning the structure of our general 

 ideas, 'under what conditions it corresponds to the real and natural 

 edifice oi things'. ^^ Describing 'general characters' as 'the uniform 

 and fixed portion of dispersed and successive existence', i^ he sets 

 up a scale in which 'the general character is an abstract character, 

 and the more abstract as it becomes more general, and the more 

 general as it becomes more abstract'. i^^ Among the examples cited 

 are such physical forces as gravity and such biological types as 

 'the race or variety', which stands in the relationship of being less 

 abstract and general to 'the species, that is to say to Man'.i^ 



This generally realist beginning is followed by what seems like a 

 nominalist analysis, based on the principle that 'the formation of 



