How did Hippolyte Taine try to apply the scientific method to literature?

Hippolyte Taine sought to transform literary criticism into a scientific discipline by treating works of art as historical and psychological documents that could be analyzed through causal factors. Influenced by positivism, he argued that a writer’s work is not a product of free will but is determined by specific, observable forces.12

To explain these works, Taine developed a methodology centered on three primary conditioning factors, often referred to as race, milieu, and moment:

• Race: The inherited temperament or disposition of a people that persists over time.12
• Milieu: The social, political, and geographical environment that shapes and modifies that inherited disposition.12
• Moment: The historical situation and the momentum of cultural traditions present at the time of creation.12

By examining these factors alongside the author’s personality and life, Taine believed one could identify the faculté maîtresse—the predominant characteristic determining the work. His approach shifted the focus of criticism toward historical causation and psychology, providing a theoretical foundation for the literary movement of naturalism, which viewed the novel as a tool for the scientific study of human nature.2