Ernest Renan . ,but terror lest he should be committed beyond re-call by advancing to the priesthood; and that hislove of the Truth ended in a defeat which hadnothing to boast of but its resignation. Another has observed, in view of the philoso-phers last achievements, intended to win applausefrom an unreformed world, saltavit et placuit,he danced to a music which his better sense con-demned as lascivious and obscene. In a gentlermood Alphonse Daudet likened him to a cathedralwhich has been desecrated to profane uses, butwhere amid the hay, straw, and stubble, while thechoir is turned to a mes
Ernest Renan . ,but terror lest he should be committed beyond re-call by advancing to the priesthood; and that hislove of the Truth ended in a defeat which hadnothing to boast of but its resignation. Another has observed, in view of the philoso-phers last achievements, intended to win applausefrom an unreformed world, saltavit et placuit,he danced to a music which his better sense con-demned as lascivious and obscene. In a gentlermood Alphonse Daudet likened him to a cathedralwhich has been desecrated to profane uses, butwhere amid the hay, straw, and stubble, while thechoir is turned to a messroom, and the stalls are astabling for horses, it is impossible to forget thatthe building was once a church. And yet anothersaying, uttered in fierce wrath by Ludovicus Vivesagainst the Arabian sceptic, Averroes, may be ap-plied to this versatile teacher, He must needsgrow impious and atheistical who is vehementlygiven to the study of thy writings. Such, at allevents, was the opinion held by those French pub-. The Statue of Ernest Renan at Tregui LAST DAYS, DEATH, EPITAPH 225 lie men who saw in his State funeral a protestagainst all rehgion and against the Christian inparticular. How now, we may further ask, will the epitaphlook which we have cited above, when set in aparallel column with another passage equally au-thentic? We stake our nobility, says Renan,with pride, on an obstinate affirmation of , he continues, there are almost as manychances that the opposite may be true. It may bethat these voices within us are the consequence ofsincere delusions, kept up by habit, and that theworld Is an amusing transfiguration-scene which nogod has in his care. We must then so arrangeas on either supposition not to be entirely in thewrong. We ought to mind those higher voices,but in such a way that if the second hypothesisturns out to be a fact, we shall not have been alto-gether duped. Here is the clean contrary ofwhat was said at Treguier. But we may write onthe same page ev
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