TAINE'S STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTEBOOKS 211 



take a single step outside of the region of ideas. . . . Hence it is not 

 a Self which is writing this work, it is Thought.' ^5 



However, despite his continued reliance on Spinoza's method 

 and style, Taine was already diverging from him on important 

 metaphysical points. First among these was a distinction between 

 logic and metaphysics which was to have a profound effect on his 

 method and his theory of causation. Thus, the propositions in 

 his 'Notes' of 1848- 1849 followed Spinoza, until they came 

 to the following distinction between two manifestations of 

 substance: 



'God or substance, in so far as it manifests itself through an 

 immediate action. 



'The world or substance, in so far as it passes through an 

 infinite series of finite and progressive actions, in order to arrive at 

 an adequate action, that is to say, one which expresses its essence 

 completely.' 1^ 



As a result of this distinction, it follows that: 



'13. God is anterior to the world in his nature, in other words he 

 is logically conceived before the world. ^'^ 



'14. God is not the cause of the world at all.'i^ 



God, though logically prior to the world, is not its cause (a pro- 

 position which denies the Creation). 



The implications of this distinction were developed the follow- 

 ing year in essays 'On Descartes' Method' (1850)19 and on the 

 Cartesian proofs of God's existence (May, 1850). 20 '. . , Descartes 

 confused the active cause of a thing with its raison d^etre.^'^^ Concern- 

 ing Descartes' third proof, the familiar ontological argument 

 ('The idea of a perfect Being implies necessary existence, which is 

 perfection. And thus God exists.'), Taine remarks: 



'(a) The idea of a necessary being is self-contradictory, 

 '(b) The idea in this proof is taken hypothetically, and thus the 

 conclusion is hypothetical. '22 



Since Spinoza uses the same ontological argument, the same 

 criticisms would apply to him: logical necessity does not imply 

 causal or metaphysical necessity. As Victor Delbos put it, dis- 

 cussing logical necessity, Taine 'goes still further than Spinoza, 

 since he excludes any ontological element from this notion of 



