M. RENAN ON THE INFINITE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8664, 5 September 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

M. RENAN ON THE INFINITE.

M. RKN/vir presided at tho annual gathering of the Fclibres or Provencal writers jib Sccaux, and (says the Times correspondent) delivered ono of his oxquisitoly turned addresses, full of those characteristics of quiethumour, pleasant rhythm, and winning lucidity which mark his style at its best. Tho following aro a few interesting passages of tho speech : —" I am extremely glad to find myself hero with people who can still amuse themselves. What a rare and good thing this is ! Having reflected a great deal upon tho infinite that) surrounds us, I have come" to think that the utmost we can ever say about it is that we know very little of it. But an infinite goodness pervades life, and I am persuaded that the moments devoted by man to rojoicing are among those which answer best to the intentions of the Eternal. Science and tho abstract have no local colour, not even nationality, but poetry, song, prayer, joy, sorrow, are individually connected with the language of oJr childhood. Life exists within life; tho life of the whole does not does not diminish the intensity of vital force in its component parts ; the bond that links us to France and to mankind does not lessen the strength of our individual or local sentiments. By your joyousness, your spirits, your just and true view of lifo, you have a healing influence on our northern distempers— the pessimism, tho propensity to place one's mind on a perpetual rack, the over-refiaed tendency which leads men still young to ask whether science is true, whether the roses are beautiful. You can laugh and sing. You sing equally well in two languages. Let us, therefore, dear friends, bless the day on which the South and tho vNorth became , incorporated into one country. I am an old man. I have reached tho time of life when one begins to think of storing up thoughts to meditate upon during eternity. I believe that the last images will be the most lasting ones, and will impress themselves on our minds through countless centuries. This fclibrige meeting is probably one of tho last that I shall attend, and I trust it will be among the things which I shall recall throughout eternity."