The general attitude to knowledge adopted by Vacherot recalls in some respects the metaphysical doctrines of Spinoza, and he endeavours to combine the purely naturalistic view of the world with a metaphysical conception. The result is a profound and, for Vacherot, irreconcilable dualism, in which the real and the ideal are set against one another in rigorous contrast, and the gap between them is not bridged or even attempted to be filled up, as, at a later date, was the task assumed by Fouillee in his philosophy of idées-forces. For Vacherot the world is a unity, eternal and infinite, but lacking perfection. Perfection, the ideal, is incompatible with reality. The real is not at all ideal, and the ideal has no reality.[[4]] In this unsatisfactory dualism Vacherot leaves us. His doctrine, although making a superficial appeal by its seeming positivism on the one hand, and its maintenance of the notion of the ideal or perfection on the other, is actually far more paradoxical than that which asserts that ultimately it is the ideal only which is real. While St. Anselm had endeavoured to establish by his proof of the existence of God the reality of perfection, Vacherot, by a reversal of this proof, arrives at the opposite conclusion, and at a point where it seems that it would be for the ideal an imperfection to exist. The absolute existence of all things is thus separated from the ideal, and no attempt is made to relate the two, as Spinoza had so rigorously done, by maintaining that reality is perfection.[[5]]
[4] It is interesting to contrast this with the attitude of the new spiritualists, especially Fouillée’s conception of idees-forces, of ideas and ideals realising themselves. See also Guyau’s attitude.
“L’idéal n’est-il pas, sur la terre où nous sommes
Plus fécond et plus beau que la réalité?”
—Illusion féconde.
[5] Vacherot contributed further to the thought of his time, notably by a book on religion, 1869, and later in life seems to have become sympathetic to the New Spiritualism, on which he also wrote a book in 1884.
The influence of Vacherot was in some measure continued in that of his pupil, Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893), a thinker who had considerable influence upon the development of thought in our period. His ability as a critic of art and literature was perhaps more marked than his purely philosophical influence, but this is, nevertheless, important, and cannot be overlooked.
Taine was a student of the Ecole Normale, and in 1851 was appointed to teach philosophy at Nevers. The coup d’état, however, changed his career, and he turned to literature as his main field, writing a work on La Fontaine for his doctorate in 1853. In the year of Comte’s death (1857) Taine published his book, Les Philosophes français du XIXe Siècle, in which he turned his powerful batteries of criticism upon the vague spiritualism professed by Cousin and officially favoured in France at that time.[[6]] By his adverse criticism of Cousin and the Eclectic School, Taine placed his influence upon the side of the positivist followers of Comte. It would, however, be erroneous to regard him as a mere disciple of Comte, as Taine’s positivism was in its general form a wider doctrine, yet more rigorously scientific in some respects than that of Comte. There was also an important difference in their attitude to metaphysics. Taine upheld strongly the value, and, indeed, the necessity, of a metaphysical doctrine. He never made much of any debt or allegiance to Comte.
[6] See his chapter xii. on “The Success of Eclecticism,” pp. 283-307. Cousin, he criticises at length; De Biran, Royer-Collard and Jouffroy are included in his censures. We might mention that this book was first issued in the form of articles in the Revue de l’Instruction publique during the years 1855, 1856.
In 1860 a volume dealing with the Philosophy of Art appeared from his pen, in which he not only endeavoured to relate the art of a period to the general environment in which it arose, but, in addition, he dealt with certain psychological aspects of the problem. Largely as a result of the talent displayed in this work, he was appointed in 1864 to tne chair of the History of Art and Æsthetics in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
Taine’s interest in philosophy, and especially in psychological problems, was more prominently demon strated in his book De l’Intelligence, the two volumes of which appeared in 1870. In this work he takes a strict view of the human intelligence as a mechanism, the workings of which he sets forth in a precise and cold manner. His treatment of knowledge is akin, in some respects, to the doctrines of the English Utilitarian and Evolutionary School as represented by John Stuart Mill, Bain and Spencer. The main feature of the Darwinian doctrine is set by Taine in the foreground of epistemology. There is, according to him, “a struggle for existence” in the realm of the individual consciousness no less than in the external world. This inner conflict is between psychical elements which, when victorious, result in sense-perception. This awareness, or hallucination vraie, is not knowledge of a purely speculative character; it is (as, at a later date, Bergson was to maintain in his doctrine of perception) essentially bound up with action, with the instinct and mechanism of movement.
One of the most notable features of Taine’s work is his attitude to psychology. He rejects absolutely the rather scornful attitude adopted with regard to this science by Comte; at the same time he shatters the flimsy edifice of the eclectics in order to lay the foundation of a scientific psychology. “The true and independent psychology is,” he remarks, “a magnificent science which lays the foundation of the philosophy of history, which gives life to physiology and opens up the pathway to metaphysics.”[[7]] Our debt to Taine is immense, for he initiated the great current of experimental psychology for which his country has since become famous. It is not our intention in this present work to follow out in any detail the purely psychological work of the period. Psychology has more and more become differentiated from, and to a large degree, independent of, philosophy in a strictly metaphysical meaning of that word. Yet we shall do well in passing to note that through Taine’s work the scientific attitude to psychologv and its many problems was taken up and developed by Ribot, whose study of English Psychology appeared in the same year as Taine’s Intelligence. Particularly by his frequent illustrations drawn from abnormal psychology, Taine “set the tone” for contemporary and later study of mental activity of this type. Ribot’s later books have been mainly devoted to the study of “the abnormal,”and his efforts are characteristic of the labours of the Paris School, comprising Charcot, Paulhan, Binet and Janet.[[8]] French psychology has in consequence become a clearly defined “school,” with characteristics peculiar to itself which distinguish it at once from the psychophysical research of German workers and from the analytic labours of English psychologists. Its debt to Taine at the outset must not be forgotten.
[7] De l’Intelligence, Conclusion.