TAINE'S STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTEBOOKS 223 



TaMs ^Abstraction! versus HegeVs 'Begriff' 



The really basic ground for Taine's criticisms of Hegel (like 

 those of Spinoza) was methodological. As has been shown, his 

 concern with the problem of induction first took the form of a 

 recognition of the difference between conception and perception. 

 He found in Hegel, too, the distinction between 'concept' ^i as a 

 logical and as an ontological term; unlike Hegel, however, he 

 did not develop the latter sense of concept, though Rosea thought 

 some version of it underlay all his scientific thinking, culminating 

 in the conclusion to On Intelligence.^^ Rosca's discussion contrasted 

 Hegel's Begriff with Taine's method of 'abstraction' : 



'According to what has just been said and proven by means of 

 texts, it is obvious that Taine's concept is not Hegel's concept. 

 Obtained through generalization, through abstraction, as Taine 

 would say, therefore through the elimination of what is particular, 

 individual, Taine's concept supposes only identity and relations of 

 extent. Intelligibility does not mean, according to Taine, concilia- 

 tion of contraries, but absolute elimination of one of the terms and 

 unreserved affirmation of the other, sacrifice of what is particular 

 for the benefit of what is universal. . . . Taine's concept would 

 therefore not be a true concept, in Hegel's eyes. Hegel would call 

 it, unhesitatingly, an empty abstraction, destitute of that which 

 properly constitutes, according to him, the very essence of the 

 concept. Taine's concept is not the concrete universal, it is the 

 abstract universal.' ^3 



Or, as we should prefer to state it, Taine thought he could arrive 

 at his universals by a route different from Hegel's; and he would 

 not have admitted that, because they were the result of the kind 

 of abstraction practised in the sciences, they were any the less 

 concrete. 



Underlying this difference in interpretation of Begriff is the fact 

 that Taine refused to accept the distinction between Reason 

 ( Vernunft) and Understanding ( Verstand) so fundamental to Hegel's 

 position. As Rosea pointed out, his disillusion with Hegel's Logic 

 came at the end of that work: he had been almost persuaded by 

 the first two volumes, which treated of the Understanding 

 (Volume I, 'Being'; Volume H, 'Essence') and only saw the 

 artificiality of Hegel's method when he read the third volume, in 

 which the doctrines of ^^^rf^ (notion or concept) and the Vernunft 



