APPENDIX B 



THE QUESTION OF TAINE'S 'POSITIVISM' 



IT is customary to classify Taine as a Tositivist' and to link his 

 name with that of Auguste Comte.i However, any parallels 

 which might be found by a detailed comparison, and they no 

 doubt exist, should probably be traced to common influences, and 

 especially to developments in the natural sciences of which both 

 were naturally aware. 



Though it would have been difficult for a student in Paris 

 around 1850 not to have heard Comte's name, Taine probably did 

 not study Comte's works till long after his own key ideas had been 

 formulated. Comte's Course of Positive Philosophy was published 

 between 1830 and 1842, yet we have found no mention of it in the 

 many documents which survive from Taine's formative student 

 years. The evidence seems to indicate that he first read Comte's 

 famous work in 1 860-1 861, and that he had not studied it carefully 

 till 1 864, when he wrote an article for the Journal des Debats on its 

 second edition. 2 



Further, Taine never was a positivist, or, if he did incorporate 

 some of the ideas of that school, he did it critically and with a 

 difference. This is evident from his well-known essay on Mill, 

 which first appeared as an article in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, 

 March, 1861, and did not receive its later title, Le Positivisme 

 anglais until its appearance in book form, 1864. 



Actually, Taine's development was moulded primarily by his 

 early allegiance to Spinoza, modified by his studies in Hegel and 

 others; the 'positivistic' elements in him, where they can be 

 detected, are late and secondary. ^ 



Perhaps a link to the movement can be found in the works of 



Charles Fourier, whose name Taine mentioned in a letter to 



Prevost-Paradol.^ Horace M. Kallen treats Fourier and Comte 



228 



