ERNEST RENAN 115 



interestedness. The purpose of man, as far as we can understand 

 it, is to create intellectual values, that is, to produce beautiful 

 things, to discover and vindicate truth, to increase justice and hu- 

 man solidarity. Every disinterested effort in that direction, how- 

 ever humble, is a positive gain, however small, for the whole 

 world. To put it in the simplest terms, he who takes life earnestly 

 and forgets himself is, to that extent, religious; he who is frivolous, 

 self-complacent, superficial, selfish, is, to that extent, irreligious. 

 When Renan renounced the taking of the sacred orders to 

 devote himself entirely to scholarly pursuits, the change appeared 

 to the bigots immense, abysmal. Some of them could never forgive 

 him; the boy educated to be a priest, but who had decided at the 

 eleventh hour to follow another road, seemed to them a renegade, 

 a vile traitor; and they hated and despised him accordingly. In 

 fact the change was very small. He was fully convinced that the 

 fullest use he could make of his life was to consecrate it to the 

 quest of truth. He was born a priest, but what else is the true 

 scientist?; he remained a lay priest — a priest of science — to the 

 end of his days. His decision to leave the church affected his 

 beliefs, changed his profession; but it did not alter the texture 

 of his soul; it did not disturb his religion. Well might he say when 

 he edited 7he future of Science after a thoughtful interval of forty 

 years, "My religion is still the progress of reason, that is, of sci- 

 ence/' And he added a little further in the same preface, "For us 

 idealists, one single doctrine is true, the transcendent doctrine 

 according to which the purpose of mankind is the creation of a 

 superior conscience or, as they put it in the old days, the greatest 

 glory of God." 



