36 POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



systems, he dared to apply that which he evolved. He was the 

 physiological psychologist in the laboratory of the world. It goes 

 without saying that he struggled to the ridge of the universe of man 

 only to fall over it into a gulf of complete helplessness. Avowedly not 

 a pessimist, certainly not an optimist, his studied attitude of impar- 

 tiality turned into a feeling of utter hopelessness and resignation 

 which he could not conceal and which seemed to give him no con- 

 tentment; not even that of having achieved. 



Yet, as he marched, he incidentally, like Julius Caesar, besieged 

 and took certain flanking citadels in operations which have made the 

 course of scientific history much safer and surer. His fierce logic 

 minimized the idea of common sense as the norm of reference; his 

 notion of rulers and their dispatches rendered him almost contemptu- 

 ous of state papers. His favorite sources were contemporary memoirs, 

 and these he used in great abundance and with consummate skill. 

 What distinguishes him above others is his careful regard for physical 

 elements in history and the penetrating glimpses he gets into its 

 motives by the study of national psychology, clearly mirrored for 

 him in national art and national literature. His famous doctrine of 

 predominant power (faculte maitresse) set forth in his splendid essay 

 on Livy, shows that individuals in a nation are begotten and con- 

 trolled by primordial forces imposing on all certain common methods 

 of thought and phases of feeling. Given the island home of a Germanic 

 race, with its peculiar climate and the rude plenty which nature 

 supplies, he boldly sketches step by step the course of English thought 

 and conduct as delineated in her art, her letters, and her institutions. 

 The race, the home, the period these, if understood, make history 

 almost an exact science in the descriptive sense: and in that only, for 

 prediction is carefully to be avoided; it is not the function of history. 



This judgment is based on a passion for the Exact, and is rooted 

 in the philosophy of sensation to which Taine was addicted. As we 

 know nothing except by sensation, so we know nothing but phenom- 

 ena. The only faculties we possess, therefore, are those of analysis 

 and generalization. Given the French people, its environment, and the 

 succession of its states, we can note every phenomenon, explain it, 

 and connect it with its causes and its effects. But we cannot predict; 

 because, although we note the links we cannot know them nor see 

 how they are produced: about them we may learn infinitely almost, 

 but what they are and how they work we may never know. In the 

 sense of prediction there can never be a science of history, because 

 for man there is not and can never be any metaphysic whatsoever. 



It has been wittily said that in Taine's efforts to follow the mathe- 

 matical curves of his science, he generally found himself off at a 

 tangent making delightful excursions in the open spaces of fancy and 

 of art. Certain it is that his fancy adorns his logic, that in a system 



