PROBLEMS OF TYPE ANALYSIS 157 



literature and art, and the latter represents the core of his inheri- 

 tance from Spinoza. Thus, though we may not be willing to follow 

 Taine to the end in his search for the Absolute, and though types 

 are inevitably abstractions, both the process of abstraction and 

 the unification of knowledge are necessary for science^ and though 

 the 'concrete universal' in science may be indeed a 'myth', it may 

 sometimes prove useful as an organizing principle. Perhaps no 

 particular definition, say of hydrogen or horse, is truly both con- 

 crete and universal; but, at the very least, a definition which 

 answers to both these descriptive terms represents the proper ideal 

 of science. Similarly, though unification of all the sciences into 

 one organic whole seems impossible today, whether on the basis 

 of Taine's hierarchical or of Hegel's neatly dialectical principles, 

 such a goal remains, like that of the fully known individual, as 

 'an infinitely distant point' towards which the sciences may be 

 moving. 



Criticisms of Taine's Position 



The relational, functional analysis of universals or types which 

 has been sketched may help us clarify some of the perplexities into 

 which we were led at the conclusion of the previous chapter by 

 Taine's concept of 'universal and permanent causes'. Though not 

 without some validity, this concept would now seem to require 

 revision in a number of directions. 



First, we may well cease the hopeless endeavour to find the 

 *Ding an sich', abstracted from all relations, replacing it, perhaps, 

 by the more fruitful concept of 'potentialities' or 'powers', waiting 

 to be actualized and discovered through their entry into ever-new 

 relationships. This would include what is valid in Taine's state- 

 ment of 'the property which any particular event of the web has 

 of being constantly followed, under various conditions, external 

 or internal, by some particular internal or external event', ^o b^t 

 in a more dynamic, operational context. More fully aware of the 

 dangers of abstraction, we should preserve an awareness of the 

 total 'field', of the biological and cultural 'matrixes', in which our 

 natural types are found. Realizing that we will surely never know 

 what they are 'in themselves', if that phrase has any meaning, we 

 should be content with full and sensitive explorations of all that 

 they may be when realized in actuality. 



Second, avoiding the mystifications of the Hegelian and 

 Marxian dialectics, we should nevertheless strive for an even 



