OF SOCIETY. 



509 



that we may examine in this history the two most 

 powerful springs of human transformation, natural bent 

 and constraining force, and we may examine them with- 

 out uncertainty or gap, in a series of authentic or 

 unmutilated memorials." l 



Attempts to understand the collective life of man, as 

 distinguished from the individual life, were made, more 

 or less independently of Comte, both in England and 

 Germany. In the latter country Comte remained un- 

 known long after his works had been studied and 

 translated in England. But in England also one bril- 

 liant attempt was made to understand and define the 



1 These quotations are all taken 

 from the Introduction to the 

 ' History of English Literature ' 

 (transl. by Van Laun, 1887, pp. 

 16 sqq.) Although Taine has done 

 so much to impress upon his read- 

 ers the importance of the milieu, 

 taking this in the larger sense 

 which he gave it, and has thus 

 emphasised an important socio- 

 logical principle, he has not re- 

 ceived a prominent place among 

 the great teachers and founders of 

 sociology. Political historians, such 

 as Lord Morley ( ' Miscellanies,' vol. 

 iii. p. 265), have indeed pointed out 

 that, e.g. , his great work on the 

 ' Origins of Contemporary France ' 

 belongs more to the region of soci- 

 ology than to that of history. But 

 on the other side Dr Barth (loc. cit., 

 p. 58), though recurring frequently 

 to Taine's principle, remarks that 

 he has not treated sociology as a 

 whole. If we have to note in 

 Comte's writings an inherent dual- 

 ism, we have, still more, from a 

 philosophical point of view, to com- 

 plain of the unreconciled ideas 

 which we discover in Taine's vari- 

 ous writings. They comprise in a 



long series such very different but 

 equally original treatises as the 

 ' History of English Literature ' 

 (1863), the 'Philosophic de 1'Art' 

 (1865). the psychological treatise 

 ' De 1'intelligence ' (1870), and the 

 ' Origines de la France Contem- 

 poraine' (1876-91). The fact is 

 that Taine is much more of an 

 artist than a philosopher or a 

 scientific thinker, though he is 

 both these to a certain extent. 

 His works are more like great 

 tableaux or outstanding portraits, 

 and, like all works of art, self- 

 contained and, to a great extent, 

 mutually exclusive. In this re- 

 spect he belongs more to the 

 history of literature and poetry, 

 and has in this capacity prob- 

 ably exerted a much wider though 

 very varying influence upon the 

 thought of his country. It is also 

 interesting to note that though 

 he did more than any other writer 

 to develop one of Comte's fruitful 

 ideas and generally to fix the mod- 

 ern conception of French positivism, 

 his allegiance to Comte is not very 

 much dwelt on by himself or by his 

 critics. 



