THE QUESTION OF TAINE'S 'POSITIVISM' 229 



together in a section of his Art and Freedom headed 'Counter- 

 Esthetics* (pp. 352-363); however, Taine is not mentioned among 

 the positivists, whose motivation was so heavily social-reformist, 

 but together with Zola in a section headed 'Philosophic Deter- 

 minism as Rationalization of Esthetic Freedom'. ^ And, when 

 Benedetto Croce discusses Taine in a chapter on 'Aesthetic 

 Positivism and Naturalism', the latter's outstanding traits are 

 found to place him outside the customary classification; the 

 Hegelian Croce even finds Taine's thinking to be dialectical, but 

 assumes that he either 'pretended or deluded' himself into ignoring 

 the contradiction between his science and his idealism I^ 



How, then, shall we account for the many references to Taine 

 as a positivist? The answers may be fairly simple. First, he did 

 share with Comte, and many others of his generation, a profound 

 interest in the sciences. That many elements in his thought 'bear 

 a close analogy to those of the evolutionary scientific system 

 proposed by Comte' "^ does not prove either that he was indebted 

 to Comte or that he was a 'positivist'. 



Second, and perhaps most relevant for an understanding of 

 changing tides of taste and thought in France, we must realize 

 that the charge of 'positivist' was a ready battle-cry in the intel- 

 lectual conflicts of the day, as with a critic like Ferdinand 

 Brunetiere — and the polemical aspect of Taine's career was 

 especially prominent during his last two decades, when the 

 Origins made him the target of much political controversy. As a 

 matter of fact, critics of Taine can be placed in two groups: the 

 idealists, who accuse him of being a positivist; and the materialists, 

 to whom he is a benighted idealist. The truth is surely somewhere 

 in between. 8 



NOTES 



1 See, for example, Joseph C. Sloane, 'The Tradition of Figure Painting and 

 Concepts of Modern Art in France', p. 13, especially Note 58. L.J. A. Mercier, 

 The Challenge of Humanism, adds 'to the pantheistic influence of Spinoza and 

 Hegel, a scientific bent which came to him (Taine) through the lately 

 developed positivism of Comte and Stuart Mill' (p. 48). 



2 See D. D. Rosea, U Influence de Hegel sur Taine, pp. 261-264, note; and 354. 



3 See ibid., pp. 244-280, where this issue is discussed in some detail. 



4 25 March, 1849 (see Appendix A, 'Bourbon College'). 



5 Ibid.y pp. 462-47 1 . 



