OUR HERITAGE FROM TAINE 205 



5 Personal Equation, p. 106, Note 2. Ogden Nash has caught the same spirit 

 of Taine's personal inadequacy in one of his satirical poems: 'If He Scholars, 

 Let Him Go' {Versus, 1949). 



^ Guerard, Personal Equation, pp. 104—105. 



"7 'Taine had perfected one of the great modern mechanical styles. His books 

 have the indefatigable exactitude, the monotonous force, of machinery . . .' 

 {To the Finland Station, p. 45). 



8 Cf. our Chapter X, p. 135. 



9 Also, 'He always wants to say everything, and then he says it over again 

 afterward' {The Journal of Eugene Delacroix, p. 632, 27 July, 1858). 



10 Cf. our Chapter VII, 'Science and Pseudo-Science'. 



11 Guerard, Personal Equation, p. 105. 



12 Ibid., pp. 105-106. However, cf. Horace M. Kallen's judgment: *A candid 

 inspection of Taine's system and his judgments could lead to no denial of these 

 critical allegations. But could they not be alleged of any systeml True as they 

 may be, they neither alter nor diminish the force of Taine's intent nor render 

 his philosophy the less representative; and in so far as science is possible, less 

 inescapable, though incomplete.' {Art and Freedom, p. 470.) 



13 Cf. Martin Turnell, in Stallman, ed. {op, cit.), pp. 426-427. Some excuse 

 for this weakness may lie in the fact that it was usually deliberate, and thus not 

 necessarily the result of insensitivity to aesthetic elements. Taine can hardly be 

 censured for not finding what he was not looking for. 



14 Cf. our Chapter I, p. 8. 



15 Thus, cf. our Chapters IV, VI ('Art as Imitation and Expression'), VII, 

 VIII, diYid passim. 



16 Stallman, ed. {op. cit.), 'Foreword', especially pp. xviii-xix, 'The rise of 

 modern criticism is part of a general intensification of the study of language and 

 symbolism' (p. xix). 



17 Guerard, Personal Equation, p. 104. 



18 Appendix G, 'Taine and the Naturalist Tradition'. 



19 'Literature as an Institution', p. 546. Cf. Sainte-Beuve, our Chapter V, 

 p. 72. 



20 Ibid., p. 547. 



21 Ibid., pp. 550-551. 



22 Guerard, Personal Equation, p. 131. 



23 Gummere, 'Whitman and Taine', p. 148. 



24 'According to Taine, we must forego the dream of "perfectibility"' 

 (Cassirer, Naturalistische . . ., p. 25). 



25 Op. cit., p. 125. 



26 Ibid., p. 131. 



27 Note that Gummere saw Taine as a defender of 'literary convention', 

 whereas Professor Levin rebukes him for insufficient attention to 'The Role of 

 Convention'. Is not the real criticism that many of the conventions which 

 Taine employs seem to us either outmoded or oversimplified? But such weaknesses 

 may be corrected by later generations without loss to Taine's essential intention. 



28 Guerard, Personal Equation, p. 107. 



29 Cf. our Chapter I, 'Biographical and Historical Explanations', and VII, 

 * Geography . . .'. 



30 See V, & C, II, 354-374, which includes some of these preliminary notes. 



