It would be interesting to study among contemporary scholars the different forms of this disdain. Does not the exaggeration of technical beauties, which is a feature of the school of poets ironically called Parnassians, proceed from this sentiment of Odi profanum vulgus? Did not Gustave Flaubert compose 'Bouvard et Péchuchet' under this inspiration? Would Taine have undertaken his 'Histoire des origines de la France contemporaine' if he had not been tormented by a longing to understand the democratic tide which was sweeping him away? But no writer has felt more strongly than M. Renan the antithesis of the superior man and democracy. One must read and re-read those pages of the 'Dialogues' where Theoctiste imagines the victory of a future oligarchy, to appreciate the intensity of passion employed in the examination of these problems. He conceives that the learned will secure formidable destructive agents, requiring the most delicate calculations and much abstract knowledge. Then, exulting in their power, the dreamer exclaims:--"Thus the forces of humanity would some day be held in a few hands, and would be possessed by a league which could rule the existence of the planet and terrorize the whole world. If those most endowed with reason had ability to destroy the planet, their sovereignty would be established. The privileged class would reign by absolute terror, since they would have the existence of all in their hands. They would be almost gods, and then would be realized the theological state dreamed by the poet for primitive humanity: 'Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor.'" We must not attach more reality to this tragic fancy than the author intended, but it shows an incurably wounded heart; and proves that the scholar who drew this gloomy picture has no great tenderness for the favorite Utopias of the age.
An open break is possible between democracy and science, the two great forces of modern society. Certainly while the tendency of the first is to level, that of the second is to create differences. "Knowledge is power," said the inductive philosopher. To know ten times as much as another is to be ten times as capable; and as intellectual inequality forbids a uniform degree of information, there is increasing opposition between democratic tendencies and the social results of science. There are several solutions, as in nearly all the complicated problems as to the future. In formulating the hypothesis of the 'Dialogues,' M. Renan indicates one of them. Another may be simply an application of science to the organization of societies. An unprejudiced consideration of the principles upon which our nineteenth-century society is founded proves their Cartesian character, very different already from modern philosophy. But there is a secret movement of minds. The conceptions of Darwin and Herbert Spencer permeate the new ones. We must have faith in the worth of the doctrines which will eventually overthrow politics, as well as natural science and literature. A time is coming when a society will not seem to the philosophers of evolution as it did to the last inheritors of the classic spirit. It will appear, not the operation of a logical contract, but the action of a confederation of organisms of which the cell is the unit. This is very different from the reigning idea. It is exclusive of any difference between democrat and aristocrat, for such difference means an arbitrary classification of the different social elements. If this consoling vision is not a simple chimera, it may be remembered that the great scorners like M. Renan are active workmen for its accomplishment, in that they formulate it very exactly, and face the coming conflict with sorrowfully keen relief.
These summary notes upon one of our most remarkable men only indicate the three or four states of conscience which he represents to the young people who read his books and meditate upon their eloquent, disquieting pages. No other author offers more that is fresh in thought and feeling, for no other employs greater sincerity in thought and in exposition of sentiment. Whoever studies the springs of moral life in the rising generation, meets everywhere his influence. Not before a hundred years hence can his achievement be measured. If there are any who do not worship sincerity and reverence, they should devote themselves to the books of M. Renan; for no one has practiced these qualities with greater constancy than he, who on the first page of his 'Vie de Jésus' invokes the pure spirit of the venerated Dead, and who prayed to him in a melancholy petition to the unattainable--"O good Genius, reveal to me whom you love, the truths which govern death, keep one from fearing and make one almost love it!"
SIR JOHN BOWRING
(1792-1872)
t will be the height of my ambition," once wrote Sir John Bowring to a friend, "to do something which may connect my name with the literature of the age."
