The Modern Regime, vol 2 | Page 7

spirit and character are easily defined, in this society founded on
Napoleonic institutions moved by our "administrative mechanism,"
what are the peculiar tendencies of a leveling democracy which seeks
immediate establishment? Among the maladies which are special with
us - feeble birth-rate, political instability, absence of local life, slow
industrial and commercial development, despondency and pessimism -
can an aptitude for transformation which we do not possess be
distinguished in the sense demanded by the new milieu ? The
knowledge we have of our origins, of our psychology, of our present
constitution, of our circumstances, what hopes are warranted?
M. Taine could not have replied to all these questions. If, twenty years
ago, on the morrow after our disasters, just as we once more set about a
new organization, putting aside literature, art, and philosophy, noble
contemplation and pure speculation, abandoning works already
projected, he gave himself up to the technical study of law, political
economy and administrative history; if, for twenty years, he secluded
himself and devoted himself to his task - at what a cost of prolonged
effort, with what a strain his mental faculties, with what weariness and
often with what dissatisfaction! - if he shortened his life, it was to
discharge what he deemed a duty to that suffering France which he
loved with tender and silent passion, the duty of aiding in her cure by
establishing the general diagnosis which a philosopher-historian was

warranted in presenting after a profound study of its vital constitution.
The examination finished, he felt that he had a right to offer the
diagnosis. Not that his modesty permitted him to foretell the future or
to dictate reforms. When his opinion was asked in relation to any
reform he generally declined giving it. "I am merely a consulting
physician," he would reply; "I do not possess sufficient details on that
particular question - I am not sufficiently familiar with circumstances
which vary from day to day." In effect, according to him, there is no
general principle from which one can deduce a series of reforms. On
the contrary, his first recommendation would have been not to try to
find simple solutions in political and social matters, but to proceed by
experiments, according to temperaments, and accepting the irregular
and the incomplete. - One becomes resigned to this course by a study of
history and by acquiring "the sense of surrounding facts and
developments." Here do we find the general remedy for the destructive
effects produced by the brusque progress of science, and she herself
furnishes this remedy, when, from the hasty and the theoretical, she
becomes experimental and builds on the observation of facts and their
relations. "Through psychological narration, through the analysis of
psychological conditions which have produced, maintained, or
modified this or that institution, we may find a partial solution to each
question of reform," gradually discovering laws and establishing the
general conditions that render possible or impossible any given project.
When constituted and then developed, reorganized, respected and
applied to human affairs, the sciences of humanity may become a new
instrument of power and civilization, and, just as the natural sciences
have taught us to derive profit from physical forces, they may teach us
to benefit by moral forces. M. Taine believed that the French were very
well qualified for this order of study: if any other people possess
superior mental faculties in respect of memory or a better knowledge of
philology, he thought we had in our favor a superiority of the
psychological sense.
Except for such beneficial generalities which may provide general
hygienic guidelines, could M. Taine have suggested immediate
remedies? It is scarcely probable. In any even, he was not a partisan for
hasty decentralization. When, under the influence of a bad system, an
organization has contracted a vice that reaches its vital organs, the

following treatment nearly becomes mandatory;[6] in any event, no
sudden modification of it must be thought of; all that can be done is to
lessen its pernicious effect by resorting to make-shift or short term
measures. Taking advantage of unforeseen circumstances, using great
circumspection, noting favorable symptoms that had impressed him -
for example a certain new birth of the spirit of association under the
Third Republic - leaving to political authorities the care "of adjusting
means" to the diversity and mobility of things, we may believe that M.
Taine would have confined himself to indicating in what sense we
could, with prudence, lay our course. To do this, it sufficed for him to
sum up his diagnosis and lay down the conditions of duration and
progress. In a matter of such vital import nobody can speak for him.
Accordingly, if the conclusion is not written, whoever knows how to
read his thought may divine it. The work, such as it is,