Recollections and letters of Ernest Renan

Preface

The composition of this little volume was suggested to me, so far as the first part is concerned, at least, by my dear friend Calmann-Levy, in one of the last visits which he paid me at the College de France, about the month of May last. We calculated together the delay which the completion of the fourth volume of the " History of the People of Israel " would entail. The result of our calculation was, that it could be done only for the end of the year 1892. *' Could you not," he said to me, '' give me, in the meantime, a volume of miscellanies which could appear next winter ? "

I enumerated to him several instructive articles which had never been collected together. " No," he said to me; "take me as the measure of the public. What we wish from you, just now, is a volume in the style of your ' Souvenirs,' interesting

for everybody, simple, personal " " I have," I

told him, " several Breton papers, made up of old images, already firmly fixed. Perhaps others will occur to me. But, in order to form a volume from them, years would be required." " You have also some short speeches, some lectures. Could not you

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with these compose a volume which would form a sort of sequel to your " Souvenirs " ?

I have on several occasions reproached the minds of our day with being too subjective, with busying themselves too much over themselves, with not being sufficiently carried away, absorbed by the object, that is to say, by that which is before us, by the world, nature, history. It is always bad to talk of one's self. That presupposes that one thinks a great deal about one's self ; but time devoted to thinking of one's self is a theft from God, as people would have said in former days. At the time when I began to make that series of my confidences, in the Revice des Deux Mondes, I met Jules Sandeau, who told me that he had found pleasure in reading them. ^^ Didcia vitia f" I answered him ; " the public, which is indulgent now, will take its revenge some day. And how shall I know when it is on the point of changing its mind ?".... '' No, Renan," he said to me, " the public will always be glad when you speak to it of yourself." Sandeau's opinion has led me rather far, it may be ; but let my friends who treat these little volumes as puerilities cease their fears ; I shall commit no more. I have been playing a rather dangerous game for some time : talking incessantly of dying, and gaining constantly in health. I am afraid of being soon called upon to keep my word, under penalty of no longer being taken seriously. Having entered upon one course of action, I am

PREFACE. Vll

speedily assailed by this verse, which Augustin Thierry often quoted to me to hold me back, when he thought that I was going too far :

A few days after the conversation which I held with my dear Calmann, I heard one morning of the fatal blow which had taken him from us. Great was my grief. Calmann was one of the best men whom I have ever known. He really belonged to the tribe of those who love peace ; he had no presumption, no pride, none of the defects which lead men astray and render them unhappy. The serenity of his soul was that of a good man, sure of being in accord with superior rule. He had true piety, that which comes from a tradition received by the heart, and he followed Hillet's precept : " Be the disciple of Aaron, who loved peace." The frightful egotism of this epoch had not attacked his house ; for he was not an egotist himself. The profound sentiment of affection and respect which his collaborators cherished for him was touching. He had solved for himself the great difficulty of our time, which is to make numerous subordinates contribute to a common work. He solved it by making himself beloved by them, by making them love what they did. Ah ! if all the chiefs of great industries did the same, the ulcers which are devouring us, and which

* Close the gates, boys ; the meadows have drunk enough.

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threaten the life of modern societies, would soon be healed.

It was in his family, above all, that he was himself, calm, happy, sure of recovering new life in a united family, in perfect accord with him. Every day he played for an hour with his grandsons, tasting that great joy of seeing the windows of life open on one side, when they were closing on the other. The veneration which he cherished for his brother, during the latter's life and after his death, arose from the admiration which he felt from childhood for the astounding intelligence of Michel ; that marvelously lucid brain, that surprising activity subjugated him. He had not created the house, but he was well constituted to maintain and continue it. His rare judgment enabled him to avoid all errors ; thanks to him, the great publishing establishment founded by Michel remained at the service of French letters, a powerful instrument in disseminating them. The hours which he came to spend with me restored my youth. I feel the need of uprightness about me ; I like to have the pages on which I write well ruled, and, as I grow older, my great joy is to retrace old memories. Farewell, dear Calmann !

It is under the auspices of this friendly name, that I present once more, to an indulgent public, a volume composed of those little frivolities which, while evoking thought, render life amiable and cause it to be endured. Nevertheless, I have in-

PREFACE. IX

troduced into it a little philosophy ; in particular the examination of my conscience for 1889. I have not modified my manner of regarding the universe materially since that time. I perceive, more and more clearly, that we know very little of what we would like to know. In philosophy, one must have confidence in the infinite goodness, and guard one's self against vain eagerness. One gains nothing by importuning truth, by soliciting it every day. That is a bad sign, if you like ; truth is deaf and cold, and our ardor has no effect upon her. Die neue Philosophic — Die neuere Philosophic — Die neueste Philosophic (The new Philosophy — The newer Philosophy — The newest Philosophy). Good Heavens ! how childish are these rising degrees of emphasis ! Why thus dispute with each other for priority in error ! Let us learn to wait ; perhaps there is nothing at the end ; let us learn to be ignorant, that the* future may know. Who knows ? Perhaps truth is sad ; let us not be in such a haste to learn it.

I am pained by the sort of agitation which I perceive in the young people who, by the privilege of their age, should be so serene. One would say that this young generation had read neither the history of philosophy nor Ecclesiastes. *' What has been

is that which will be " But, dear children,

it is useless to give yourselves such a headache. Amuse yourselves, since you are only twenty years old ; work also. If we know nothing of meta-

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physics, on the other hand, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, and history, are full of revelations. Oh ! what things you will know in forty or fifty years, which I shall never know ! And then, what humanitarian problems you will see solved ! What is the Emperor William III. ? What will become of the conflict of European nationalities ? What turn will social questions take ? Will anything come out of the Socialistic movement, properly speaking? What will be the fate of the Papacy in the near future ? Alas ! I shall die before I have seen these things, and you will know them ! It is asserted that there exist in Lebanon, ancient Arabic testaments, where the dead man makes it a condition of his donations, that the people shall come and inform him, in his tomb, when the French become masters of the land once more. There are moments, in fact, when I say to myself, that there is a piece of news which, whispered furtively in my ear, in my grave, would make me quiver to the point of coming to life again. But I have too often read in the Bible that one really. knows nothing in the depths of sheol of what is taking place on the earth, that one hears nothing there, that one remembers nothing, to put any clause of that sort at the end of my will.

Why rise in revolt against truths as old as the world ? Was it only yesterday that it was discovered that man is a fragile and perishable creature ? I am not one of those of whom that very ancient

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I pity that poor Joseph, I pity the young men who are devoured by a pessimism which will not be consoled. We frequently read on ancient tombs : " Courage, dear so and so ; no one is immortal ; Hercules himself died." One may find the consolation rather feeble ; it is real, nevertheless

Marcus Aurelius, dear fiiends, was superior to all others in goodness, and Marcus Aurelius was content with it. Have we ever believed that we should not die ? Let us die calmly, in the communion of humanity and the religion of the future, when we have accomplished our destiny. The existence of the world is assured for a long time to come. France, in her giddy comet-flight, will per- ♦haps come out of it better than certain indications would lead one to believe. The future of science is guaranteed ; for. in the scientific balance, everything is added, and nothing is lost. Error does not found anything ; no error lasts long. Let us be tranquil. In less than a hundred thousand years the earth will have discovered the means of supplying the place of coal, and, up to a certain point of

virtue there will be bad times to traverse

Moral value is on the ebb, that is sure ; abnegation has almost disappeared ; we see the day coming when everything will be syndicates, where organized egotism will take the place of love and devotion. Our century has created more and

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more perfect tools, without perceiving that the use of these tools supposes a certain degree of morality, of conscience, of devotion, in work or in man. The two things which, up to this time, have resisted the fall of respect — the army and the church — both founded on illusions, will soon be carried away in the general torrent. It is of no consequence ; the resources of humanity are infinite. Eternal works will be accomplished, ^vithout the foundation of living forces, always rising to the surface, being ever exhausted. Science, above all, will continue to astonish us by its revelations, which will put the infinite of space and time in the place of a petty world conceived according to the measure of imagination of a child. Is the need of eternal consciousness which torments us, moreover, a simple illusion ? No, no. On such a matter, formal negations are as rash as absolute affirmations. Religion is true in the infinite. When God shall be complete he will be just. I am convinced that virtue will turn out definitely, one of these days, to have been the better part. Let us stand firm ; let us endure the raillery of those who pretend to be better informed. Merit lies in affirming duty against apparent evidence. If virtue were a good investment, business people, who are very sagacious, would all have noticed the fact ; they would all be virtuous. No, it is a bad investment in the finite order, but, in the infinite, parallels meet ; in the infinite, negations vanish, contradictions are merged.

PREFACE. Xin

Nothing proves to us that there exists in the world a central consciousness, a soul of the universe ; but nothing proves the contrary, either. We do not remark in the universe any sign of deliberate and thoughtful action. We may affirm that no action of this sort has existed for millions of centuries. But thousands of centuries are nothing in infinity. What we call long is very short in comparison with another measure of size. When the chemist arranges an experiment that is to last for years, everything which takes place in his retorts is regulated by the laws of absolute unconsciousness ; which does not mean that a will has not intervened at the beginning of the experiment, and that it will not intervene at the end. Millions of microbes may have been produced in the interval ; if these microbes had had sufficient intelligence, they might, by reasoning on the brief period permitted to their observations, allow themselves to go so far as to say : *' The world has no room for special volitions." And they would be mistaken.

What we call time is, perhaps, a minute between two miracles. " We do not know ; " that is all that one can say clearly about that which lies beyond the finite. Let us deny nothing, let us assert nothing, let us hope. An immense moral, and, perhaps, intellectual decline will follow the day when religion disappears from the world. We can get along without religion, because others have it for us. Even those who do not believe are

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PREFACE, swept along by the more or less believing masses ; but woe to us on that day when the masses have no longer any enthusiasm. One can do m.uch less with a humanity which does not believe in the immortality of the soul than with a humanity which does believe in it. A man's value depends upon the proportion of religious sentiment which he has carried away with him from his early education, and which perfumes his whole life. The religious zones of humanity live on a shadow. We live only upon the shadow of a shadow. What will the people who come after us live upon ?

Let us not quarrel over the quantity or the formula of religion ; let us confine ourselves to not denying it ; let us preserve the category of the unknown, the possibility of dreaming. Christianity has rendered us too exacting, too hard to please. We want heaven, nothing less. Let us content ourselves with smaller profits. A few years ago when M. de Rothschild was upholding with vivacity, in the Israelite consistory, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, a learned Israelite of the most ancient school said to me : ''Can one understand that ? So rich a man — and he wants a paradise to boot ! Let him leave that to us poor devils."

The Middle Ages entertained very philosophical views on this point. Beasts receive in this world the reward for the good that they have done. It was related that some nuns had trained a hind to

PREFACE. XV

be very devout to the Virgin. The little animal knelt upon a praying-stool before the sacred image ; it was full of piety. As hinds possess no immortal soul, and, consequently, cannot enter into paradise, the nuns were very anxious that their little pet should have here below those pleasures which it craved ; they stuffed it with preserves. Very nearly the same thing can be read in the life of the Fathers of the desert. The lion which St. Anthony made come for the purpose of burying St. Paul, worked away with his claws with astonishing zeal. By way of wages, St. Anthony bestows upon him his benediction, the effect of which is to make him immediately meet a sheep, which he devours. Where is the justice for the sheep ? you will say to me. Ah ! that is precisely what is not clear ; or rather, it is clear that, in the whole organization of the world, there is not a trace of justice for the sheep.

Let us accustom ourselves, like the nuns' hind, to be content with little dainties, let us try to acquire a taste for them. Let us be austere toward ourselves, but let us not impoverish life. On all these points we must not listen to the literary subtleties of our day. Let us not deprive humanity of its joys ; let us find our joy in watching it enjoy itself. The joy of others is a great part of our joy ; it constitutes that great reward of the upright life, which is gayety.

I have been much reproached for preaching

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PREFACE.

that religion which is easy in appearance, but which, in reality, is the most difficult of all. Not everyone is gay who wills to be so. For that, one must come of an ancient race, which has not suffered surfeit ; one must also be content with one's life. My life has been that which I wished, that which I conceived as the best. If I had to live it over again, I would not make any great change in it. On the other hand, I am a little afraid of the future. I shall have my biography and my legend. My legend ? . . . . Having some experience of ecclesiastical writers, I can sketch out in advance the way in which it will be written up in Spanish in some Catholic review of Santa Fe, in the year 2000. The legends of the enemies of the official church are all run in the same mold. The end which the book of the Acts attributes to Judas " crepuit medius " (he burst in twain) forms the perfunctory base of them. For one part of historical tradition, I shall end like that, in a manner combined from Arius and Voltaire. Heavens ! how black I shall be ! I shall be so all the more, because the Church, when she feels that she is lost, will end with malice ; she will bite like a mad dog. In spite of all this, I have confidence in reason. The enlightened portion of humanity, the only one for which I care, will form some esteem for me. Five hundred years hence the commission on the " Literary History of France," of the Academy of Inscriptions and BeUes-letters, will write my notice,

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It will be obliged to combat documents which will tell it that I received a million from M. de Rothschild for writing the " Life of Jesus," nearly as much from the Emperor Napoleon III., who, later on, having dismissed me, gave me a rich pension on the Journal des Savants. The commission will unravel all this, in accordance with the rules of criticism ; I am sure that its verdict will be admitted by sensible people.

In reality, I fear nothing but apochryphal texts. There exists already a considerable mass of texts, sayings, and anecdotes which are attributed to me, and amuse the Catholic press. The clergy, as a rule, quote at second hand ; they buy few books; they take their quotations from the petty clerical reviews of the lower class. Already, almost everything that the Bishops quote as from me is fabricated, or full of contradictions. I entreat the friends of truth, in the future, not to accept, as coming from me, anything but what has appeared in the volumes published by Levy. The sayings and conversations which are attributed to me are nearly all invented. At the epoch when I published the " Vie de Jesus," journals paid by the Jesuits published, as mine, counterfeited autographs against which I have never entered a complaint. I repeat, five hundred years hence, the commission on the " Literary History " will be of the opinion that this proves nothing. And then, five hundred years is a yer^ long time, Man has such puerile ideas ^bout xvm

PREFACE.

death that he imagines he is less dead when he is buried than he is five hundred years later. We are less solicitous as to what will be said about us after the lapse of several centuries than of what is said about us on the day of our funeral, a day when we are still alive and the slumbering hero of the festival.

I confess that I should not feel indifferent at being the object of a fine funeral in Paris. There are, in the new people of Paris, materialistic sides which I no longer comprehend ;,but the people of Paris in former days were brave, chivalrous, friends of the right, absurd, idealistic. Oh ! how I have loved them ! To be for such people as that the cause of a day's repose, of joy, of love, and of virtue, would make me very happy. And if they were to introduce into it a little feasting and revelry, oh ! really, what harm would that do ? Popular festivals, even when their character is sad, always have a little the air of a fair ; for the masses need to purchase on the street, and a throng of poor people are glad to do a bit of peddling on that day, and earn a little money.

I have related elsewhere how a pious person of the neighborhood of Nantes, who evidently believes that I live in the midst of feasts and dissipations, writes me the following words every three months : " There is a hell." This person, whom I thank for his good intentions, does not alarm me as much as he thinks. I should like to be sure that there is a

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hell, for I prefer the hypothesis of hell to that of nothingness. Many theologians, think that, for the damned, it is better to be than not to be, and that the unhappy wretches are perhaps accessible to more than one good thought. For my part, I imagine that if the Eternal, in his severity, were to send me to that bad place, I should succeed in escaping from it. I would send up to my Creator a supplication which would make him smile. The course of reasoning by which I would prove to him that it was through his fault that I was damned, would be so subtle that he would find difficulty in replying to it. Perhaps he would admit me to paradise, where people must be dreadfully bored. He certainly does allow that Satan, criticism, to enter, from time to time, among the children of God to amuse the assembly a little.

To tell the truth, as I have already allowed it to be understood elsewhere, the fate which would suit me best is purgatory, a charming place, where many charming romances begun on earth must be continued, and which one can be in no haste to leave, especially in view of the few attractions of paradise. What sometimes renders me not so very anxious to attain that place of delight is its monotony. Can one change one's place there ? Heavens ! how quickly one will have exhausted one's neighbor ! Trips from planet to planet would suit me well enough ; but the devout old women, who, they say, will form the majority of the elect,

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would not suit me at all. May God's will be done !

Celestial Father, I thank thee for life ! It has been sweet and precious to me, surrounded as I have been by excellent beings who have not allowed me to doubt thy designs. I have not been exempt from sin ; I have had the defects of all men ; but I have always pulled the bridle of reason in time. Whatever those who call themselves thy priests may say, I have not committed any very evil actions. I have loved truth, and I have made sacrifices for it; I have desired thy day, and I still believe in it. Thy joys are promised to the sincere man ; the frivolous man shall not approach thee. During my first journey in Syria, I received hospitality in a patriarchal house of Lebanon, where there was an aged father, of great piety, who conceived a great affection for me. When the '' Life of Jesus " appeared, he heard many sermons against me, and entered into great doubts. He applied to his son Dominiqiie, who was well posted on French affairs and who had accompanied me in my travels, " Tell me, my son, what are M. Renan's errors. Let us proceed in due order. Among the things which must be -believed there is, first, God the Father. Let us see — does he believe in God the Father?" " Oh ! yes," answered Dominique, "on that point his solidity defies attack." " That is a great deal, my son; that is a great deal," replied the old man.

Let us not renounce God the leather ; let us not

PREFACE XXI

deny the possibility of a final day of justice. We have never been in one of those tragic situations where God is, in some sort, the necessary confidant and consoler. What would you have a pure woman, accused unjustly, do, if not raise her eyes to heaven ? or the victim of an irreparable judicial error, a man who dies in the fulfillment of an act of self-devotion — a noble and peaceful man massacred by barbarous soldiers ? Where shall we seek the true witness if not on high, in unknown space? Even in our peaceful lives, where great trials are rare, how often we feel the need of appealing to the absolute verity of things, of saying to it, " Speak, speak." The moment of death must be one of those moments. I think that very few men have died without an appeal to God, without prayer. The moments of this sort are, perhaps, those in which we are in the right. But the strange thing about it is that we never obtain the slightest sign to show that our protests have touched anything. When Nimrod launched his arrows against heaven, they came back to him stained with blood. We obtain no response. O God ! whom we adore in spite of ourselves, to whom we pray twenty times a day without knowing it. Thou art in verity a hidden God.

I should be glad to have this small volume give the reader a little of the pleasure which I have taken in composing it. It completes my " Souvenirs," and they are an essential part of my work.

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Whether they augment or diminish my philosophical authority, they explain me — they show the origin of my verdicts, true or false. My mother, with whom I was so poor, by whose side I have toiled for hours, pausing only to say to her : "Mamma, are you satisfied with me ?" the little friends of my childhood, who enchanted me with their discreet, pretty ways ; my sister Henriette, so lofty, so pure, who, at twenty years of age, led me into the path of reason, and lent me her hand to traverse a difficult passage, have embalmed the beginning in an aroma which will last until death. I was brought up by women and by priests ; therein lies the whole explanation of my good qualities and my defects. In Brittany, the women are superior to the men, scold the men, despise them. The priest, also, formerly enjoyed a great superiority over laymen ; the women loved their parish priest much better than they did their husbands. The sort of embarrassment which I feel in the company of those who are not consecrated to moral and intellectual things, arises from the scorn which my masters taught me to entertain for laymen. There is a priest's and a woman's disdain in my awkwardness. In my manner of feeling I am three-quarters a woman.

One loves thoroughly, all one's life, only the heads of little girls which one has seen at the age of sixteen. That is what incessantly carries me back to those old images, now almost effaced. If

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I am wrong in this, it is the indulgence which the public showed to my " Souvenirs " which has induced me to do evil. I must say that my philosophy counts for something in this matter. On many points, it seems to me that people of the world have the right of things against the scholastics. They see better the living whole. Not a single philosopher has ever turned his attention to love. Now, I persist in thinking that love is a strange mystery, and the best proof that many things which go on in us proceed from beings which are in us but are not us. On this point I am full of discourse. I always wish to begin over again all that I have said.

How, you will say, does it come that you talk so continually of that of which you know so little ? Oh! here I enter my protest. In these matters, to be too well posted is to be case-hardened. Arnauld was right in his book on " Frequent Communion." The Jansenists thought, very justly, that too frequent use of the communion destroys the taste for it, decreases its savor. The same thing may be said of love. Those who speak the best of it are those who have misused it the least, and have considered it as a religious act. Yes, a religious act, a sacred moment in which man tastes the immense joy of begetting life, rises above his habitual mediocrity, sees his faculties of enjoyment and sympathy exalted to their highest limit. Dear and touching aberration ! love is as eternal as religion. Love is