M. NANS "PAST AND PRESENT."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8156, 18 January 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

M. NANS "PAST AND PRESENT."

M. RKKAN may nob be altogether a wholesome mental fare or a safe epiritual guide, but he is always interesting, oven when he is most vague. From time to time he givos forth little papers embodying the train of his recent reflections. When in his summer retreat on the shores of Brittany tho philosopher feels moved to contido his most secret thoughts and feelings to the world at large. It is a habit which appears to grow in natures such as that of the ex-Seminarist and present Professor at tho College do France. And this is not surprising whon it is romombered that in the ordinary course of things M. Renan would have lived to amass several volumes of sermons, if reckoned at tho modest estimate of only one a week. Having closed the doors of the pulpit against himself, tho preacher has boon foicod to content himself with an occasional lay sermon. On one of the occasions when I had tbe honour of conversing with the distinguished thinkor, he replied to my question, " Do you think tho pulpit is destined to disappear?" "How can one suppose such a thing? No ; people will always listen to the pulpit." As a ripe soholar, tho Professor hau only to draw on tho experience of antiquity in proof of this prediction. But the pulpit in the time of the anciont Creeks was something very different from what we see it now. M. Renan has kindly confided to a contributor to ho Temps tho advanced sheets of a work to bo published soon entitled, " The Future of Science" It will appear in volume form, of about 500 pages. The work, though now to tho public, is in reality forty years old, having been written in 1849, under the influence of tho Revolution of the year before. In the- volume about to see the light no changes have been made. The yellow MS. copied by the hand of Madame Renan will bo printed with scarcely any modification. From the extracts given in he Temps it appears that Renan on the morrow of his secession from tho Church had embraced " the creed of progress based on tho perfectibility of tho human species." Ho could not conceive existence without a system, " which alone constituted the life of man." " Of courso, I understand scepticism ; it is a system like another ; it has its greatness and nobility. I understand faith ; I envy and regret it, perhaps. But what seems to me a monster in humanity is indifference and levity. Bo as spiritual as you will, but he who in presence of the infinite does not see himself surrounded by mysteries and probloras is, in my eyes, nothing but a brute." M. Ronan did not deem it impious "to endeavour to improve the work of Providence." "The old conceptions of the world having been made all of a piece, so to speak, and of tho wickedness of attempting to strive against fate."