TAINE'S STUDENT CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTEBOOKS 225 



developed further the following year in an essay on the idea of space (Chevrillon , 

 p. no, Note). 



29 V. & C, I, 348. 



30 V. & C, I, 348, Note. The author of the Life and Letters (Chevrillon?) 

 dates this note November, 1849 (p. 115; November, 1850, on p. 348, is an 

 error), but in Taine Chevrillon suggests the spring of 1850 (pp. 91-93). 



31 Extracts are printed in V. & C, I, 116-118. 



32 y^ ^ c.y I, 115 (extracts from the Idea of Science, ibid, 352-353; from On 

 //f^ ^^j-o/i//^, Chevrillon, pp. 389-390). 



33 Chevrillon, pp. 93-98. 



34 Probably referred to in the Life and Letters as 'des recherches sur le dogme 

 Chretien' and 'Metaphysique' (F. & C, I, 119). 



35 V. & a, I, 1 18-120. 



36 V. & C, I, 116. 



37 Ibid. 



38 The Idea of Science notebook began with the definition that 'The true or 

 perfect idea is that which agrees with its object' {V. <2? C, I, 352). 



The Dogma, Metaphysics notebooks began as follows : 'This is how I proceeded 

 at first: suppose a veracious thought and, on all sides of that hypothesis, 

 deduce what it will imply. But in order that it should affirm, it is necessary that 

 what it affirms should actually be, which implies a second hypothesis' (Chevril- 

 lon, p. 93). This second hypothesis, oi material, rather than formal, truth, would 

 imply a theory of induction. 



But Taine was still haunted by the absolute: 'Man (subject and author of 

 science) is mobile, but the object of science will be immobile. It is the self 

 which creates science, but it builds on the absolute. . . . 



'Is there not a contradiction in this, and in that case how to resolve it? I 

 have wearied myself since yesterday evening without finding anything. . . . 



'It is necessary to guard against falling into the faults with which we reproach 

 the experimental method. Science, we say, should include only affirmations 

 which are eternally true. The two fundamental conditions are to perceive 

 everything under the character of necessity and to exclude all possibility of 

 error. . .' (F. & C, I, 116). 



He had not yet explored the view of truth as consisting of statements which 

 are merely probable. 



39 Cf. 'Criticisms of Spinoza and Descartes', this Appendix. 



40 Extract in Chevrillon, pp. 401-402, where it is dated 1850 or 1851; 1850 

 seems more probable. 



41 Chevrillon, p. iii. Note. 



42 Ibid, p. 394. 



43 'And what is most excellent is that Aristotle provides the method necessary 

 for finding the proof when he says that given terms must be found through the 

 cause, that is to say through their analysis and definition. That is the true 

 method and it is very superior to that of Descartes' {ibid., pp. 401-402). 



44 Ibid., p. 402. 



45 Chevrillon, p. 402. 

 46 /^zW. 



47 Ibid. 



48 F. <2?C., I, 117. 



S.A.J. — 15 



