ABSTRACT
Hippolyte Taine's essay of 1858, afterwards incorporated in his Nouveaux essais de critique et d'histoire, was, arguably, the most influential study of Balzac published in the nineteenth century. Though not immune to Balzac's faults, Taine laid the foundations in this essay for a scientific and Naturalist Balzac calculated to satisfy many of the exigencies of the second half of the century. Taine's 'scientific' approach to Balzac's creation consisted of a fundamental concern with causes and effects, with what Henry James termed 'formulas and labels'. Taine praised Balzac for his systematic and revealing portrayal of human nature. In keeping with his overall conviction that the parts had significance only in relation to the whole, he rejected the notion that Balzac's achievement resided in the provision of myriad details of verifiable accuracy. As David Bellos has emphasized, for Taine 'the supreme quality of Balzac, his unique source of truth, was his powerful imagination'.
