The author, Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828 – 1893) was a French critic and historian. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him.Taine is best known now for his attempt at a scientific account of literature, based on the categories of race, milieu, and moment.
Taine used these words in French (race, milieu et moment); the terms have become widespread in literary criticism in English, but are used in this context in senses closer to the French meanings of the words than the English meanings, which are, roughly, "nation", "environment" or "situation", and "time".
Taine argued that literature was largely the product of the author's environment, and that an analysis of that environment could yield a perfect understanding of the work of literature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Taine
In 1870, he published the two volumes of De l’intelligence (On Intelligence), a major work in the discipline of psychology, which had interested him since his youth. His devotion to science is most fully illustrated here; he outlines a scientific methodology for the study of human personality that established him, alongside thinkers such as Théodule Ribot and Pierre Janet, as a founder of empirical psychology.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/580776/Hippolyte-Taine/7087/Publication-of-De-lintelligence#ref81891
