FROM ANALYSIS TO JUDGMENT 167 



Also, his applications of the categories of 'importance' and 'bene- 

 ficence' are peculiarly humanistic and might not be so readily 

 applied to a non-imitative art like music. Taine tries to anticipate 

 this criticism by treating the relations between the imitative and 

 non-imitative arts as analogous to those between what are discussed 

 in On Intelligence as the sciences of 'real things' and of 'possible 

 things' (or 'constructions'), and justifies his concentration on the 

 former as follows : 'But a symphony, a temple thus constituted are 

 living beings like a written poem or a painted figure; for they are 

 also organized beings, all the parts of which are mutually depen- 

 dent and governed by a guiding principle', they also possess 2i physiog- 

 nomy, they also manifest an intention, they also speak through 

 expression, they also terminate in an effect. Under all these headings 

 they are ideal creations of the same order as the others, subjected to 

 the same laws of formation as to the same rules of criticism. 

 . . .'31 However, whereas it may be relatively easy to erect a scale 

 of moral values in terms of the 'essential characters' of people and 

 nations, for example, a similar scale of musical and architectural 

 types would be less obvious. The idea of 'force' or 'forces' may 

 have interesting possibilities for analyses of those arts,^^ b^t Taine's 

 dismissal of the problem is a serious blemish. 



Another major difficulty emerges when an attempt is made to 

 combine Taine's value scales into a single pattern: the aesthetic 

 criteria seem to clash with the scientific ones on crucial points. 

 For example, Taine's central doctrine — that the more important 

 or essential character will be most permanent and simple — seems 

 to imply a certain superiority for the primitive. Thus, 'In the 

 psychological, as well as in the organic individual, it is necessary 

 to distinguish the primitive as well as the later characters, the 

 elements which are primordial and their arrangement which is 

 derived.' 33 This is in line with both evolutionary theory^^ and 

 Romantic taste: 'Here, as in natural history, it is necessary to note 

 the embryo of the nascent mind in order to discover in it the distinc- 

 tive traits of the complete and developed mind; the characters of the 

 primitive age are the most significant of all. . . .'35 Though Taine 

 has too fine a sense of discrimination to let this principle dominate 

 his choice of examples completely, it seems implied by his reason- 

 ing and is, of course, a familiar argument in debates on the relative 

 merits of the Ancients and the Moderns. Thus, at the very highest 

 level, the Hebrew Psalms are cited as expressing 'some sentiment, 

 some type, common to almost all groups of humanity' 3^; 'true 



