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TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE (1828-1893)

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 363 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE (1828-1893) , See also:French critic and historian, the soh of See also:Jean See also:Baptiste Taine, an See also:attorney, was See also:born at Vouziers on the 21st of See also:April 1828. He remained with his See also:father until his See also:eleventh See also:year, receiving instruction from him, and attending at the same See also:time a small school which was under the direction of M. See also:Pierson. In 1839, owing to the serious illness of his father, he was sent to an ecclesiastical See also:pension at See also:Rethel, where he remained eighteen months. J. B. Taine died on the 8th of See also:September 184o, leaving a moderate competence to his widow, his two daughters, and his son. In the See also:spring of 1841 Taine was sent to See also:Paris, and entered as a boarder at the Institution Mathe, where the pupils attended the classes of the See also:College See also:Bourbon. Madame Taine followed her son to Paris. Taine was not slow to distinguish himself at school. When he was but fourteen years old he had already See also:drawn up a systematic See also:scheme of study, from which he never deviated. He allowed himself twenty minutes' playtime in the afternoon and an See also:hour's See also:music after See also:dinner; the See also:rest of the See also:day was spent in See also:work.

In 1847, as See also:

veteran de rhetorique, he carried off six first prizes in the See also:general competition, the See also:prize of See also:honour, and three accessits; he won all the first school prizes, the three See also:science prizes, as well as two prizes for dissertation. It was at the College Bourbon that he formed lifelong friendships with several of his schoolfellows who afterwards were to exercise a lasting See also:influence upon him: among these were See also:Prevost-Paradol, for many years his most intimate friend; Planat, the future " Marcelin " of the See also:Vie Parisienne; and Cornelis de Witt, who introduced him to See also:Guizot when the latter returned from See also:England in 1846. Public See also:education was the career which seemed to See also:lie open to Taine after his remarkable school successes. In 1848 he accordingly took both his baccalaureat degrees, in science and letters, and passed first into the 1 See also:cole Normale; among his rivals, who passed in at the same time, were About, See also:Sarcey, Libert, and Suckau. Among those of Taine's See also:fellow-students who afterwards made a name in teaching, letters, journalism, the See also:theatre and politics, &c., were Challemel-Lacour, Chassang, See also:Aube, Perraud, See also:Ferry, See also:Weiss, Yung, Gaucher, Greard, Prevost-Paradol and See also:Levasseur. Taine made his influence See also:felt among them at once; he amazed everybody not only by his erudition, but by his indefatigable See also:energy; and not only by his prodigious See also:industry, but by his facility both in French and Latin, in See also:verse as well as in See also:prose. He devoured See also:Plato, See also:Aristotle, the Fathers ofthe See also:Church, and he analysed and classified all that he read. He already knew See also:English, and set himself to See also:master See also:German in See also:order to read See also:Hegel in the See also:original. His brief leisure was devoted to music. The teachers of his second and third years, See also:Deschanel, See also:Geruzez, Berger, See also:Havet, See also:Filon, See also:Saisset and See also:Simon, were unanimous in praising the See also:nobility of his See also:character, the vigour and the fertility of his See also:intellect, the distinction of See also:style with which his work was always stamped; they were equally unanimous in finding See also:fault with his unmeasured See also:taste for See also:classification, See also:abstraction and See also:formula. The director of studies, M. See also:Vacherot, gauged his capacity at the end of his second year with prophetic insight.

He prophesied that Taine would be a See also:

great savant, adding that he was not of this See also:world, and that See also:Spinoza's See also:motto, " Vivre pour penser," would also be his. In the See also:month of See also:August 1851 he came forward as a See also:candidate for the fellowship in See also:philosophy (agregation de philosophie) in See also:company with his See also:friends Suckau and Cambier. Taine was declared to be admissible, together with five other candidates; but in the end only two candidates were admitted, his friend Suckau and Aube. This decision created almost a See also:scandal. Taine's reputation had already spread beyond the college. Everybody had taken for granted that he would be admitted first. The fact was that his examiners sincerely considered his ideas to be absurd, his style and method of handling a subject dry and tiresome. The See also:Minister of Public Instruction, however, judged Taine less severely, and appointed him provisionally to the See also:chair of philosophy at the college of See also:Toulon on 6th See also:October 1851; but he never entered upon his duties, as he did not wish to be so far from his See also:mother, and on 13th October he was transferred to See also:Nevers as a substitute. Two months later, on the 27th See also:December, occurred the coup d'etat, after which every university See also:professor was regarded with suspicion; many were suspended, others resigned. In Taine's See also:opinion it was the See also:duty of every See also:man, after the See also:plebiscite of the loth December, to accept the new See also:state of affairs in silence; but the See also:universities were not only asked for their submission, but also for their approbation. At Nevers they were requested to sign a See also:declaration expressing their gratitude towards the See also:President of the See also:Republic for the See also:measures he had taken. Taine was the only one to refuse his endorsement.

He was at once marked down as a revolutionary, and in spite of his success as a teacher and of his popularity among his pupils, he was transferred on 29th See also:

March 1852 to the lycee of See also:Poitiers as professor of See also:rhetoric, with a See also:sharp warning to be careful for the future. Here, in spite of an abject compliance with the stringent rules imposed upon him, he remained in disfavour, and on 25th September 1852 he was appointed assistant professor of the See also:sixth class at the lycee of See also:Besancon. This time he could See also:bear it no longer, and he applied for leave, which was readily granted him on 9th October 1852, and renewed every year till his decennial See also:appointment came to an end. It was in this painful year, during which Taine worked harder than ever, that the fellowship of philosophy was abolished. As soon as Taine heard of this he at once began to prepare himself for the fellowship in letters, and to work hard at Latin and See also:Greek themes. On loth April 1852 a See also:decree was published by which three years of preliminary study were necessary before a candidate could compete for the fellowship, but by which a See also:doctor's degree in letters counted as two years. Taine immediately set to work at his See also:dissertations for the doctor's degree; on the 8th See also:June (1852) they were finished, and 150 pages of French prose on the Sensations and a Latin See also:essay were sent to Paris. On the 15th See also:July he was informed that the tendency of his Essay on the Sensations made it impossible for the See also:Sorbonne to acce - t it, so for the moment he laid this work aside, and on 1st Aug t he began an essay on La See also:Fontaine. He then started for Paris, where an appointment which was See also:equivalent to a suspension awaited him. His university career was over, and he was obliged to devote. himself to letters as a profession. In a few months his two dissertations, De personis Platonicis and the essay on La Fontaine's fables were finished, and on 3oth May 1853 he took his doctor's degree. This was the last See also:act of his university career; his See also:life as a man of letters was now to begin.

No sooner had he deposited his dissertations at the Sorbonne than he began to write an essay on See also:

Livy for one of the competitions set by the See also:Academy. Here again the moral tendency of his work excited lively opposition, and after much discussion the competition was postponed till 1855; Taine toned down some of the censured passages, and the work was crowned by the Academy in 1855. The essay on Livy was published in 1856 with the addition of a See also:preface setting forth determinist doctrines, much to the disgust of the Academy. In the beginning of 1854 Taine, after six years of uninterrupted efforts, See also:broke down and was obliged to rest: but he found a way of utilizing his enforced leisure; he let himself be read to, and for the first time his See also:attention was attracted to the French Revolution; he acquired also a knowledge of See also:physiology in following a course of See also:medicine. In 1854 he was ordered for his See also:health to the See also:Pyrenees, and See also:Hachette, the publisher, asked him to write a See also:guide-See also:book of the Pyrenees. Taine's book was a collection of vivid descriptions of nature, See also:historical anecdotes, graphic sketches, satirical notes on the society which frequents watering-places, and underlying the whole book was a vein of stern philosophy; it was published in 1855. The year 1854 was an important one in the life of Taine. His enforced leisure, the See also:necessity of mixing with his fellow-men, and of travelling, tore him from his cloistered existence and brought him into more See also:direct contact with reality. His method of expounding philosophy underwent a See also:change. Instead of employing the method of See also:deduction, of starting with the most abstract See also:idea and following it step by step to its See also:concrete realization, henceforward he starts from the concrete reality and proceeds through a See also:succession of facts until he arrives at the central idea. His style also became vivid and full of See also:colour; he shows that he is acutely sensible to the outward manifestations of things and depicts them in all their See also:relief. Simultaneously with this change in his See also:works his life became less self-centred and solitary.

He lived with his mother in the Isle See also:

Saint-See also:Louis, and now he once more associated with his old friends, Planat, Prevost-Paradol and About. He made the acquaintance of See also:Renan, and through Renan that of Sainte-Beuve, and he renewed friendly relations with M. Havet, who for three months had been his teacher at the Ecole Normale. These years (1855–56) were Taine's periods of greatest activity and happiness in See also:production. On 1st See also:February 1855 he published an See also:article on La Bruyere in the Revue de l'Instruction Publique. In the same year he published seventeen articles in this See also:review and twenty in 1856 on the most diverse subjects, ranging from See also:Menander to See also:Macaulay. On 1st August 1855 he published a See also:short article in the Revue See also:des Deux Mondes on Jean Reynaud. On 3rd July 1856 appeared his first article in the Debats on Saint-Simon, and from 18J7 onwards he was a See also:constant contributor to that See also:journal. But he was seeking a larger See also:field. On 17th See also:January 1856 his See also:history of English literature was announced, and from 14th January 1855 to 9th October 1856 he published in the Revue de l'Instruction Publique a See also:series of articles on the French philosophers of the 19th See also:century, which appeared in a See also:volume at the beginning of 1857. In this volume he energetically attacked the principles which underlie the philosophy of See also:Victor See also:Cousin and his school with an See also:irony which amounts at times to irreverence. The book closes with the See also:sketch of a See also:system in which the methods of the exact sciences are applied to psycho-logical and metaphysical See also:research.

The work itself met with instantaneous success, and Taine became famous. Up till that moment the only important articles on his work were an article by About on the Voyage aux Pyrenees,' and two articles by Guizot on his Livy? After the publication of See also:

Les Philosophes Francrais, the articles of Sainte-Beuve in the Moniteur (9th and 16th March 1856), of Sherer' in the Bibliotheque Universelle (1858), and of See also:Planche in the Revue des Deux Mondes (1st April Revue de l'Instruction Publique, 29th May 1856. 2 Debats, 26th and 27th January 1857. 2 Reprinted in Melanges de Critique Religieuse. 1857) show that from this moment he had taken a See also:place in the front See also:rank 'of the new See also:generation of men of letters. See also:Caro published an attack on Taine and Renan, called " L'Idee de Dieu dans une Jeune Ecole," in the Revue Contemporaine of 15th June 1857. Taine answered all attacks by See also:publishing new books. In 1858 appeared a volume of Essais de Critique et d'Histoire; in 186o La Fontaine et ses Fables, and a second edition of his Philosophes See also:Francais. During all this time he was persevering at his history of English literature up to the time of See also:Byron. It was from that moment that Taine's influence began to be felt; he was in constant intercourse with Renan, Sainte-Beuve, Sherer, See also:Gautier, See also:Flaubert, Saint-Victor and the Goncourts, and gave up a little of his time to his friends and to the calls of society. In 1862 Taine came forward as a candidate for the chair of literature at the See also:Polytechnic School, but M. de Lomenie was elected in his place.

The following year, however, in March, See also:

Marshal Randon, Minister of See also:War, appointed him examiner in history and German to the military academy of Saint Cyr, and on 26th October 1864 he succeeded See also:Viollet-le-Duc as professor of the history of See also:art and xsthetics at the Ecole des See also:Beaux Arts. Renan's appointment at the College de See also:France and Taine's candidature for the Poly-technic School had alarmed Mgr. See also:Dupanloup, who in 1863 issued an Avertissement d la Jeunesse et aux Peres de See also:Famine, which consisted of a violent attack upon Taine, Renan and See also:Littre: Renan was suspended, and Taine's appointment to Saint Cyr would have been cancelled but for the intervention of the Princess Mathilde. In December 1863 his Histoire de la Litterature Anglaise was published, prefaced by an introduction in which Taine's determinist views were See also:developed in the most uncompromising See also:fashion. In 1864 Taine sent this work to the Academy to compete for the Prix Bordin. M. de See also:Falloux and Mgr. Dupanloup attacked Taine with violence; he was warmly defended by Guizot: finally, after three days of discussion, it was decided that as the prize could not be awarded to Taine, it should not be awarded at all. This was the last time Taine sought the suffrages of the Academy See also:save as a candidate, in which quality he appeared once in 1874 and failed to be elected, See also:Mezieres, Caro and See also:Dumas being the See also:rival candidates; and twice in 1878, when, after having failed in May, H. See also:Martin being chosen, he was at last elected in See also:November in place of M. Lomenie. In 1866 he received the See also:Legion of Honour, and on the conclusion of his lectures in See also:Oxford on See also:Corneille and See also:Racine, the University conferred upon him (1871) its degree of D.C.L. The See also:period from 1864 to 1870 was perhaps the happiest of Taine's life.

He derived See also:

pleasure from his employment at the Beaux Arts and Saint Cyr, which See also:left ample leisure for travel and research. In 1864 he spent February to May in See also:Italy, which furnished him with several articles for the Revue des Deux Mot:des from December 1864 to May 1866. In 1865 appeared La Philosophie de l'Art, in 1867 L'Ideal dans l'Art, followed by essays on the philosophy of art in the See also:Netherlands (1868), in See also:Greece (1869), all of which short works were republished later (in 1880) as a work on the philosophy of art. In 1865 he published his Nouveaux Essais de Critique et d'Histoire; from 1863 to 1865 appeared in La Vie Parisienne the notes he had taken for the past two years on Paris and on French society under the sub-See also:title of " Vie et Opinions de See also:Thomas See also:Frederic Graindorge," published in a volume in 1867, the most See also:personal of his books, and an See also:epitome of his ideas. In 1867 appeared a supplementary volume to his history of English literature, and in January 187o his Theorie de l'Intelligence. In 1868 he married Mademoiselle Denuelle, the daughter of a distinguished architect. He had made a See also:long stay in England in 1858, and had brought back copious notes, which, after a second See also:journey in 1871, he published in 1872 under the title of Notes sur l'Angleterre. On 28th June 187o he started to visit See also:Germany, but his journey was abruptly interrupted by the outbreak of the war; his project had to be abandoned, and Taine, deeply shaken by the events of 1870, felt that it was the duty of every Frenchman to work solely in the interests of France. On 9th October 187o he published an article on " L'Opinion en Allemagne et les Conditions de la Paix," and in 1871 a pamphlet on Le See also:Suffrage Univcrscl; and it was about this time also that the more or less vague ideas which he had entertained of See also:writing on the French Revolution returned in a new and definite shape. He determined to trace in the Revolution of 1789 the See also:reason of the See also:political instability from which See also:modern France was suffering. From the autumn of 1871 to the end of his life his great work, Les Origines de la France Contemporaine, occupied all his time, and in 1884 he gave up his professorship in order to devote himself wholly to his task; but he succumbed before it was finished, dying in Paris on 5th March 1893. In the portion of the work which remained to be finished Taine had intended to draw a picture of French society and of the French See also:family, and to trace the development of science in the 19th century.

He had also planned a complementary volume to his Theorie de l'Intelligence, to be entitled Un Traite de la Volonte. The Origines de la France Contemporaine, Taine's monumental achievement, stands apart from the rest of his work. His See also:

object was to explain the existing constitution of France by studying the more immediate causes of the See also:present state of affairs—the last years of what is called the Ancien Regime, the Revolution and the beginning of the 19th century, to each of which several volumes were assigned. He also had another object, although he was perhaps hardly conscious of it, which was to study man in one of his pathological crises; for Taine makes an investigation into human nature; and the historian checks and endorses the See also:pessimism and misanthropy of Graindorge. The problem which Taine set himself was to inquire why the centralization of modern France is so great that all individual initiative is practically non-existent, and why the central See also:power, whether it be in the hands of a man or of an See also:assembly, is the See also:sole and only power ; also to expose the See also:error underlying two prevalent ideas:-(1) That the Revolution destroyed See also:absolutism and set up See also:liberty; the Revolution, he points out, merely caused absolutism to change hands. (2) That the Revolution destroyed liberty instead of establishing it; that France was less centralized before 1789 than after 'Soo. This also he shows to be untrue. France was already a centralized See also:country before 1789, and See also:grew rapidly more and more so from the time of Louis XIV. onwards. The Revolution merely gave it a new See also:form. The Origines differ from the rest of Taine's work in that, although he applies to a period of history the method which he had already applied to literature and the arts, he is unable to approach his subject in the same spirit; he loses his philosophic See also:calm; he cannot help writing as a man and a Frenchman, and he lets his feelings have See also:play; but what the work loses thus in impartiality it gains in life. Taine was the philosopher of the See also:epoch which succeeded the era of romanticism in France. The romantic era had lasted from 1820 to 185o.

It had been the result of a reaction against the classical school, or rather against the conventionality and lifeless rules of this school in its decadence. The romantic school introduced the principle of individual liberty both as regards See also:

matter and style; it was a brilliant epoch, See also:rich in men of See also:genius and fruitful of beautiful work, but towards 185o it had reached its decline, and a See also:young generation, tired in turn of its conventions, its hollow rhetoric, its pose of See also:melancholy, arose, armed with new principles and fresh ideals. Their ideal was truth; their watchword liberty; to get as near as possible to scientific truth became their object. Taine was the See also:mouthpiece of this period, or rather one of its most authoritative spokesmen. Many attempts have been made to apply one of Taine's favourite theories to himself, and to define his predominant and preponderant See also:faculty. Some critics have held that it was the power of See also:logic, a power which was at the same time the source of his weakness and of his strength. He had a See also:passion for abstraction. "Every man and every book," he said, " can be summed up in three pages, and those three pages can be summed up in three lines." He considers everything as a mathematical problem, whether it be the universe or a workof art: " C'est beau comme un syllogisme," he said of a See also:sonata of See also:Beethoven. Taine's theory of the universe, his See also:doctrine, his method of writing See also:criticism and history, his philosophical system, are all the result of this logical See also:gift, this passion for reasoning; classification and abstraction. But Taine's imaginative quality was as remarkable as his power of logic; hence the most satisfactory See also:definition of Taine's predominating faculty would be one which comprehended the two gifts. M. See also:Lemaitre gave us this definition when he called Taine a poete-logicien; M.

See also:

Bourget likewise when he spoke of Taine's See also:imagination philosophique, and M. See also:Barnes when he said that Taine had the power of dramatizing abstractions. For Taine was a poet as well as a logician; and it is possible that the portion of his work which is due to his poetic and imaginative gift may prove the most lasting. Taine's doctrine consisted in an inexorable See also:determinism, a negation of See also:metaphysics; as a philosopher he was a positivist. Enamoured as he was of the precise and the definite, the spiritualist philosophy in See also:vogue in 1845 positively maddened him. He returned to the philosophy of the 18th century, especially to See also:Condillac and to the theory of transformed sensation. Taine presented this philosophy in a vivid, vigorous and polemical form, and in concrete and coloured See also:language which made his works more accessible, and consequently more influential, than those of Auguste See also:Comte. Hence to the men of 186o Taine was the true representative of See also:positivism. Taine's See also:critical work is considerable; but all his works of criticism are works of history. Hitherto history had been to criticism as the See also:frame is to the picture; Taine reversed the See also:process, and studied See also:literary personages merely as specimens and productions of a certain epoch. He started with the See also:axiom that the See also:complete expression of a society is to be found in its literature, and that the way to obtain an idea of a society is to study its literature. The great writer is not an isolated being; he is the result of a thousand causes; firstly, of his See also:race; secondly, of his environment; thirdly, of the circumstances in which he was placed while his talents were developing.

Hence Race, Environment, Time—these are the three things to be studied before the man is taken into See also:

consideration. Taine completed this theory by another, that of the predominating faculty, the faculte maitresse. This consists in believing that 1 every man, and especially every great man, is dominated by one faculty so strong as to subordinate all others to it, which is the centre of the man's activity and leads him into one particular channel. It is this theory, obviously the result of his love of abstraction, which is the See also:secret of Taine's power and of his deficiencies. He always looked for this salient quality, this particular channel, and when he had once made up his mind what it was, he massed up all the See also:evidence which went to corroborate and to illustrate this one quality, and necessarily omitted all conflicting evidences. The result was an inclination to See also:lay stress on one See also:side of a character or a question to the exclusion of all others. Taine served science unfalteringly, without looking forward to any possible fruits or result. In his work we find neither See also:enthusiasm nor bitterness, neither See also:hope nor yet despair; merely a hopeless resignation. The study of mankind was Taine's incessant preoccupation, and he followed the method already described. He made a searching investigation into humanity, and his See also:verdict was one of unqualified condemnation. In " Thomas Graindorge " we see him aghast at the spectacle of man's brutality and woman's folly. In man he See also:sees the primeval See also:savage, the See also:gorilla, the carnivorous and lascivious See also:animal, or else the maniac with diseased See also:body and disordered mind, to whom health, either of mind or body, is but an See also:accident.

Taine is appalled by the bete humaine; and in all his works we are conscious, as in the See also:

case of See also:Voltaire, of the terror with which the possibilities of human folly inspire him. It may be doubted whether Taine's system, to which he attached so much importance, is really the most lasting See also:part of his work, just as it may be doubted whether a sonata of Beethoven bears any resemblance to a See also:syllogism. For Taine was an artist as well as a logician, an artist who saw and depicted what he saw in vital and glowing language. From the artist we get his essay on La Fontaine, his articles on See also:Balzac and Racine, and the passages on Voltaire and See also:Rousseau in the Ancien Regime. Moreover, not only was Taine an artist who had not escaped from the influence of the romantic tradition, but he was by his very method and style a romanticist. His emotions were deep if not violent, his See also:vision at times almost lurid. He sees everything in startling relief and sometimes in exaggerated outline, as did Balzac and Victor See also:Hugo. Hence his predilection for exuberance, strength and splendour; his love of See also:Shakespeare, See also:Titian and See also:Rubens; his delight in bold, highly-coloured themes. Taine's influence was great, and twofold. On his own generation it was considerable; during the-epoch in which he lived, while a See also:wave of pessimism was sweeping over French literature, he was the high See also:priest of the cult of misanthropy, in which even science was held to be but an idol, worthy of respect and devotional service, but not of faith. In its turn came the reaction against positivism and pessimism, and an See also:attempt at spiritual renascence. Around a man so remarkable as Taine a school is certain to form itself; Taine's school, which was one of positivist doctrines, rigid systems and resigned hopelessness, was equally certain to produce at some time or another a school of determined opponents to its doctrines and system.

If, therefore, the See also:

tone which pervades the works of See also:Zola, Bourget and See also:Maupassant can be immediately attributed to the influence we See also:call Taine's, it is also the influence of Taine which is one of the ultimate causes of the protest embodied in the subsequent reaction. (M.

End of Article: TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE (1828-1893)

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