TAINE, HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE French critic and historian, the son of Jean Baptiste Taine, an attorney, was born at Vouziers on April 21, 1828. J. B. Taine died on Sept. 8, 1840, leaving a moderate competence to his widow, his two daughters, and his son. Taine was educated at the College Bourbon, where he formed lifelong friendships with Prevost Paradol, for many years his most intimate friend, Planat, the future "Marcelin" of the Vie Parisienne, and Cornelis de Witt, who introduced him to Guizot when the latter returned from England in 1846. Taine passed from the College Bourbon to the cole Normale, but in 1851 he was refused the fellowship in philosophy which was universally regarded as his due. Neverthe less the minister of public instruction appointed him to a pro fessorship at Toulon, which he exchanged for one at Nevers. But he refused to express explicit approval of the coup d'etat of Dec. 27, 1851. Consequently he was removed to an inferior post ; next year saw a further step downward, and he accordingly applied for, and received, indefinite leave of absence. In a few months his two dissertations, De personis Platonicis and the essay on La Fontaine's fables were finished, and May 3o, 1853 he took his doctor's degree. This was the last act of his uni versity career; his 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 Livy for one of the com petitions set by the 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. In the beginning of 1854 Taine, after six years of uninterrupted effort, broke down and was obliged to rest. The year 1854 was an important one in the life of Taine.
His enforced leisure, the necessity of mixing with his fellow men, and of travelling, tore him from his cloistered existence and brought him into more direct contact with reality. He lived with his mother in the Isle Saint-Louis, and now he once more asso ciated with his old friends, Planat, Prevost-Paradol and About.
He made the acquaintance of 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 production. In 1855 he published seventeen articles in the Revue de l'Instruction publique, and twenty in 1856 on the most diverse subjects, ranging from Menander to Macaulay. From 1857 onwards he was a regular contributor to the Journal des Debats.
But he was seeking a larger field. In January 1856 his history of English literature was announced, and in 1855-56 he pub lished in the Revue de l'Instruction publique a series of articles on the French philosophers of the 19th century, which appeared in a volume at the beginning of 1857. In this volume he ener getically attacked the principles which underlie the philosophy of Victor Cousin and his school. The book closes with the sketch of a system in which the methods of the exact sciences are ap plied to psychological and metaphysical research. The work itself met with instantaneous success, and Taine became famous. In 1858 appeared a volume of Essais de Critique et d'Histoire; in 186o La Fontaine et ses Fables, and a second edition of the Philosophes Francais.
In 1864 Taine succeeded Viollet-le-Duc as professor of the history of art and aesthetics at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Renan's appointment at the College de France and Taine's candidature for the Polytechnic School had alarmed Mgr. Dupanloup, who in 1863 issued an Avertissement a la Jeunesse et aux Peres de Famine, which consisted of a violent attack upon Taine, Renan and Lithe: 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 developed in the most uncompromising fashion. In 1864 Taine sent this work to the Academy to compete for the Prix Bordin. M. de 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 ail. After three attempts to secure ad mission to the Academy Taine was elected in November 1878.