APPENDIX A 



TAINE'S STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE 



AND NOTEBOOKS 



THE RATIONALIST TRADITION.* SPINOZA AND DESCARTES 



(1848-1849) 



Bourbon College 



DURING his last year at Bourbon College, Taine plunged 

 seriously into philosophic studies, producing, among others, 

 an essay on Spinoza's pantheism^ and a treatise 'On 

 Human Destiny'. 2 In the 'Introduction' already referred to, he 

 described how Guizot's lectures on Civilization in Europe started 

 him on the search for laws of history and he became a 'sceptic in 

 science and ethics'. ^ The philosophy of Spinoza came to his 

 rescue: 



'During the first months of the philosophy class, that state 

 became insupportable to me. . . . Then, wearied by contradic- 

 tions, I placed my spirit in the service of the newest and most 

 poetical opinion; I defended pantheism to the death. . . . That 

 was my salvation.'"^ 



Pantheism, in this context and during that period of France's 

 intellectual history, meant the 'intellectual love of God' of 

 Benedictus Spinoza. ^ Taine's professor of philosophy during his 

 last year at Bourbon College, Charles Benard,^ later wrote of his 

 student as follows: 



'Taine entered ( 1 848) the philosophy class, a product of educa- 

 tion in rhetoric, but already a philosopher, I mean a fervent 

 disciple of Spinoza. His faith in Spinozism was already such that 

 it was not possible to change it one iota. He had shut himself 



S.A.J. — 14 209 



