ERNEST REN AN. 833 



philosophy served to re-enforce the doubts inspired by historical 

 and linguistic criticism as to the infallibility of the Church and 

 the Scriptures, and the teaching which makes the Christian reve- 

 lation the central fact of history and the explanation of the uni- 

 verse. It was a heart-breaking process, since it was to carry dis- 

 appointment and dismay, not only to the teachers he venerated 

 but to a mother whom he tenderly loved ; but he did not hesitate 

 for a moment to take the step imposed upon him by honesty and 

 conscience. He left the peaceful asylum which had held out to 

 him the promise of an assured future, for the hard life of an 

 assistant schoolmaster in the Quartier Latin, and began, at twenty- 

 two, to prepare for the examinations necessary to his entering on 

 the career of a professor. At this difficult juncture his sister 

 came to his aid. Her own thoughts and her own studies had 

 already brought her to the same negative views with regard to 

 the Catholic religion, though she had steadily avoided unsettling 

 her brother's mind with her doubts; and when he opened his 

 heart to her, and told her his reasons for quitting the seminary 

 and renouncing the priesthood, she received the news with joy, 

 and sent him her savings — some twelve hundred francs — to help 

 him over his first difficulties. 



But he had no need to exhaust this reserve fund. With his 

 extraordinary powers and the knowledge he had already acquired, 

 he soon made himself an independent position, and henceforth he 

 went on from one success to another. The record of his achieve- 

 ments during the five years which followed his withdrawal from 

 Saint Sulpice (1846-1850) is simply astounding. He passed through 

 all his university degrees, from the B. A. to the " agre'gation " in 

 philosophy, where he took a first in 1848 ; he took the Volney 

 prize the same year at the Acade'mie des Inscriptions for an im- 

 portant work on the general history and comparative grammar 

 of the Semitic languages, and another prize two years later for an 

 essay on the study of Greek in the middle ages ; he made a tour 

 of research among the Italian libraries, whence he brought back 

 his these de doctoral — a book on Averrhoes and Averrhoism, 

 which contains an admirable history of the introduction of Greek 

 philosophy into the West by the Arabs ; and at the same time he 

 published an essay on the origin of language, and composed a 

 considerable work on the Future of Science, which was not pub- 

 lished till 1890. 



This book, written in the space of a few months by a young 

 man of twenty-five, already embodies all the ideas on life and the 

 world which he elaborated in detail in his later writings ; but they 

 are here affirmed in a tone of enthusiastic conviction which be- 

 came more and more modified as he went on, though the basis of 

 his teaching remained unchanged. He hails the dawn of a new 



VOL. XLII. — 5*7 



