ABSTRACT
Taine's critical method has sketched its more general features and especially the various categories of analysis which he employed: abstraction, history and psychology, causes and conditions, biology and culture, and master faculty these were the chief avenues through which he sought to understand literature and art. Taine's formula is roughly equivalent to John Dewey's analysis of experience as the interactions (psychology) of organisms (biology) with their environments (culture). That Taine was aware of the issue, and made his choice of method deliberately, is evident from his clear distinction between recreative and philosophical criticism, in answer to Sainte-Beuve's criticisms. Thus, the questions raised by Taine's theory of causation are more fundamental than those raised by the 'new criticism' which factors in aesthetic analysis considers 'extrinsic', and which 'intrinsic'. Taine recognizes this fully in the second part of his Essay on Livy, on 'History Considered as an Art', and fortunately he preserved the great tradition in much of his practice.
