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RENAN, ERNEST (1823-1892)
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See also:RENAN, ERNEST (1823-1892) , See also:French philosopher and Orientalist, was See also:born on the 27th of See also:February 1823 at See also:Treguier. His See also:father's See also:people were of the See also:fisher-See also:clan of Renans or Ronans; his grandfather, having made a small See also:fortune by his fishing See also:smack, bought a See also:house at Treguier and settled there, and his father, See also:captain of a small cutter and an ardent Republican, married the daughter of Royalist trading-folk from the neighbouring See also:town of See also:Lannion. All his See also:life Renan was divided between his father's and his See also:mother's See also:political beliefs. He was only five years old when his father died, and his See also:sister Henriette, twelve years older than Ernest, a girl of remarkable See also:character, was henceforth morally the See also:head of the See also:household. Having in vain attempted to keep a school for girls at Treguier, she See also:left her native See also:place and went to See also:Paris as teacher in a See also:young ladies' boarding-school. Ernest meanwhile was educated in the ecclesiastical See also:seminary of his native place. His See also:good-conduct notes for this See also:period describe him as " docile, patient, diligent, painstaking, thorough." We do not hear that he was brilliant, but the priests cared little for such qualities. While the priests were grounding him in See also:mathematics and Latin, his mother completed his See also:education. She was only See also:half a See also:Breton. Her paternal ancestors came from See also:Bordeaux, and Renan used to say that in his own nature the Gascon and the Breton were constantly at odds. In the summer of 1838 Renan carried off all the prizes at the See also:college of Treguier. His sister in Paris told the See also:doctor of the school in which she taught about the success of her See also:brother, and he carried the See also:news to F. A. P. See also:Dupanloup, then engaged in organizing the ecclesiastical college of St See also:Nicholas du Chardonnet, a school in which the young See also:Catholic See also:nobility and the most gifted pupils of the Catholic seminaries were to be educated together, with a view to cementing the See also:bond between the See also:aristocracy and the priesthood. Dupanloup sent for Renan at once. He was fifteen and a half. He had never been outside his Breton See also:province. " I learned with stupor that knowledge was not a See also:privilege of the See also: The See also:rhetoric of St Nicholas had wearied him, and his serious intelligence hoped to satisfy itself with the vast and solid material of Catholic See also:theology. See also:Reid and See also:Malebranche first attracted him among the philosophers, and after these he turned to See also:Hegel, See also:Kant and See also:Herder. Renan began to perceive the essential See also:contradiction between the See also:metaphysics which he studied and the faith that he professed, but an appetite for truths that can be verified restrained his See also:scepticism. " Philosophy excites and only half satisfies the appetite for truth; I am eager for mathematics," he wrote to his sister Henriette. Henriette had accepted in the See also:family of See also:Count See also:Zamoyski an engagement more lucrative than her former place. She exercised New political relations in See also:Europe dating from the See also:Renaissance. the strongest See also:influence over her brother, and her published letters reveal a mind almost equal, a moral nature See also:superior, to his own It was not mathematics but See also:philology which was to See also:settle the gathering doubts of Ernest Renan. His course completed at Issy, he entered the college of St Sulpice in See also:order to take his degree in philology See also:prior to entering the church; and here he began the study of See also:Hebrew. He saw that the second See also:part of See also:Isaiah differs from the first not only in See also:style but in date; that the See also:grammar and the See also:history of the See also:Pentateuch are posterior to the See also:time of See also:Moses; that the See also:book of See also:Daniel is clearly apocryphal. It followed from his training that, if you admit one See also:error in a revealed See also:text, you incriminate the whole. Secretly, Renan See also:felt himself cut off from the communion of See also:saints, and yet with his whole See also:heart he desired to live the life of a Catholic See also:priest Hence a struggle between vocation and conviction; owing to Henriette, conviction gained the See also:day. In See also:October 1845 Renan left the seminary of St Sulpice for Stavistas, a See also:lay college of the Oratorians. Finding himself even there too much under the domination of the church, a few See also:weeks later he reluctantly See also:broke the last tie which See also:bound him to the religious life and entered M. Crouzet's school for boys as an See also:usher. It is always dangerous to educate a really See also:great mind in only one order of truth. Renan, brought up by priests in a See also:world ruled by authority and curious only of feeling and See also:opinion, was to accept the scientific ideal with an extraordinary expansion of all his faculties. He was henceforth ravished by the splendour of the cosmos. At the end of his life he wrote of See also:Amiel, " The See also:man who has time to keep a private See also:diary has never understood the immensity of the universe." The certitudes of See also:physical and natural See also:science were revealed to Renan in 1846 by the chemist Marcellin See also:Berthelot, then a boy of eighteen, his See also:pupil at M. Crouzet's school. To the day of Renan's See also:death their friendship continued. Renan was occupied as usher only in the evenings. In the daytime he continued his researches in Semitic philology. In 1847 he obtained the Prix See also:Volney—one of the See also:principal distinctions awarded by the See also:Academy of See also:Inscriptions—for the See also:manuscript of his " See also:General History of Semitic See also:Languages." In 1847 he took his degree as Agrege de Philosophic; that is to say, See also:fellow of the university, and was offered a place as See also:master in the lycee of See also:Vendome. In 1848 a small temporary See also:appointment to the lycee of See also:Versailles permitted him to return to the capital and resume his studies. The revolution of 1848 aroused in Renan that See also:side of him which loved the priesthood because " the priest lives for his See also:fellows." He for the first time confronted the problems of See also:Democracy. The result was an immense See also:volume, The Future of Science, which remained in manuscript until 189o. L'Avenir de la science is an See also:attempt to conciliate the privileges of a necessary elite with the See also:diffusion of the greatest good of the greatest number. The difficulty haunted Renan throughout his life. By the time he had finished his elaborate See also:scheme for regenerating society by means of a devoted aristocracy of knowledge, and the diffusion of culture, the See also:year 1848 was past, and with it his See also:fever of Democracy. In 1849 the French See also:government sent him to See also:Italy on a scientific See also:mission. He remained eight months abroad, during which he forgot his anxiety about the toilers' See also:lot. Hitherto he had known nothing of See also:art. In Italy the artist in him awoke and triumphed over the savant and the reformer. On his return to Paris Renan lived with his sister Henriette. A small See also:post at the See also:National Library, together with his sister's savings, furnished him with the means of livelihood. In the evenings he wrote for the Revue See also:des deux mondes and the Debats the exquisite essays which appeared in 1857 and 1859 under the titles Etudes d'histoire religieuse and Essais de morale et de critique. In 1852 his book on See also:Averroes had brought him not only his doctor's degree, but his first reputation as a thinker. In his two volumes of essays Renan shows himself a Liberal, but no longer a Democrat. Nothing, according to his philosophy, is less important than prosperity. The greatest good of the greatest number is a theory as dangerous as it is illusory. Man is not born to be prosperous, but to realize, in a little vanguard ofchosen See also:spirits, an ideal superior to the ideal of yesterday. Only the few can attain a See also:complete development. Yet there is a solidarity between the chosen few and the masses which produce them; each has a See also:duty to the other. The See also:acceptance of this duty is the only See also:foundation for a moral and just society The aristocratic See also:idea has seldom been better stated. The success of the Etudes d'histoire religieuse and the Essais de morale had made the name of Renan known to a cultivated public. While Mademoiselle Renan remained shut up at See also:home copying her brother's See also:manuscripts or compiling material for his See also:work, the young philosopher began to frequent more than one Parisian See also:salon, and especially the studio of Ary See also:Scheffer, at that time a noted social centre. In 1856 he proposed to marry Cornelie Scheffer, the niece and adopted daughter of the great Dutch painter. Not without a struggle Henriette consented not only to the See also:marriage, but to make her home with the young couple, whose housekeeping depended on the sum that she could contribute. The history of this See also:romance has been told by Renan in the memorial See also:essay which he wrote some six years later, entitled Ma Smut. Henriette. His marriage brought much brightness into his life, a naturalness into his style and a greater See also:attention to the picturesque. He did not forsake his studies in Semitic philology, and in 1859 appeared his See also:translation of the Book of See also:Job with an See also:introductory essay, followed in 1859 by the See also:Song of Songs.
Renan was now a See also:candidate for the See also:chair of Hebrew and Chaldaic languages at the College de See also:France, which he had desired since first he studied Hebrew at the seminary of St Sulpice. The death of the See also:scholar See also:Quatremere See also: Madame Renan joined them in See also:January 1861, returning to France in See also:July. The mission proved fruitful in Phoenician inscriptions which Renan published in his Mission de Phenicie. They See also:form the See also:base of that Corpus Inscriplionum Semiticarum on which he used in later years to declare that he founded his claim to remembrance. He wished to complete his exploration of the upper range of See also:Lebanon; he remained, therefore, with Henriette to affront the dangerous miasma of a Syrian autumn. At Amshit, near Byblos, Henriette Renan died of intermittent fever on the 24th of See also:September 1861. Her brother, himself at death's See also:door, was carried unconscious on See also:board a See also:ship waiting in See also:harbour and bound for France. The See also:sea See also:air revived him, but he reached France broken apparently in heart and See also:health. His sister in her last days had entreated him not to give up his candidature for the chair of Hebrew, and on the 11th of January 1862 the See also:Minister of Public Instruction ratified Renan's See also:election to the post. But his opening lecture, in which, amid the See also:applause of the students, Renan declared Jesus See also:Christ " an incomparable Man," alarmed the Catholic party. Renan's lectures were pronounced a disturbance of the public See also:peace, and he was suspended. On the and of See also:June 1864, on opening the newspaper, Renan saw that he had been 'transferred from the chair of Hebrew at the College of France to the post of sub-librarian at the National Library. He wrote to the Minister of Public Instruction: " Pecunia tua tecum sit!" He refused the new position, was deprived of his chair, and henceforth depended solely upon his See also:pen. Henriette had told him to write the life of Jesus. They had begun it together in See also:Syria, she copying the pages as he wrote them, with a New Testament and a See also:Josephus for all his library. The book bears the See also:mark of its origin—it is filled with the See also:atmosphere of the See also:East. It is the work of a man See also:familiar with the See also:Bible and theology, and no less acquainted with the inscriptions, monuments, types and landscapes of Syria. But it is scarcely the work of a great scholar: Renan's See also:debt to the school of See also:Tubingen has been exaggerated, in so far as regards the Life of Jesus. The book appeared on the 23rd of June 1863; before See also:November sixty thousand' copies of it were in circulation. Renan still used his See also:literary gifts to pursue a scientific ideal. In the days when he had composed his huge, immature See also:treatise on the Future of Science, he had written: " I envy the man who shall evoke from the past the origins of See also:Christianity. Such a writer would compose the most important book of the See also:century." He set to work to realize this project, and produced the Apostles in 1866, and St See also:Paul in 1869, after having visited See also:Asia See also:Minor with his wife, where he studied the scenes of the labours of St Paul as minutely as in 1861 he had observed the material surroundings of the life of Jesus. Renan was not only a scholar. In St Paul, as in the Apostles, he shows his concern with the larger social life, his sense of fraternity, and a revival of the democratic sentiment which had inspired L'Avenir de hi science. In 1869 he presented himself as the candidate of the liberal opposition at the See also:parliamentary election for See also:Meaux. While his See also:temper had become less aristocratic, his 'Liberalism had grown more tolerant. On the See also:eve of its See also:dissolution Renan was half prepared to accept the See also:Empire, and, had he been elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he would have joined the See also:group of l'Empire liberal. But he was not elected. A year later See also:war was declared with See also:Germany, the Empire See also:fell, and See also:Napoleon III. went into See also:exile. The Franco-See also:German War was a turning-point in Renan's history. Germany had always been to him the See also:asylum of thought and disinterested science. Now he saw the See also:land of his ideal destroy and ruin the land of his See also:birth; he beheld the German no longer as a priest, but as an invader. His heart turned to France. In La Reforme intellectuelle et morale (1871) he endeavoured at least to bind her wounds, to safeguard her future. Yet he was still under the influence of Germany. The ideal and the discipline which he proposed to his defeated See also:country were those of her conqueror—a feudal society, a monarchical government, an elite, which the See also:rest of the nation exists merely to support and nourish; an ideal of See also:honour and duty imposed by a chosen few on the recalcitrant and subject multitude. The errors of the See also:Commune confirmed Renan in this reaction. At the same time the See also:irony always perceptible in his work grows more See also:bitter. His Dialogues philosophiques, written in 1871, his See also:Ecclesiastes (1882) and his See also:Antichrist (1876) (the See also:fourth volume of the Origins of Christianity, dealing with the reign of See also:Nero) are incomparable in their literary See also:genius, but they are examples of a disenchanted and sceptical temper. He had vainly tried to make his country follow his precepts. He resigned himself to See also:watch her See also:drift towards perdition. The progress of events showed him, on the contrary, a France which every day left a little stronger, and he aroused himself from his disbelieving, disillusioned See also:mood. and observed with genuine See also:interest the struggle for See also:justice and See also:liberty of a democratic society. For his mind was the broadest of the See also:age. The fifth and See also:sixth volumes of the Origins of Christianity (the See also:Christian Church and See also:Marcus A urelius) show him reconciled with democracy, confident in the See also:gradual ascent of man, aware that the greatest catastrophes do not really interrupt the sure if imperceptible progress of the world—reconciled also in some measure, if not with the truths, at least with the moral beauties of Catholicism, and with the remembrance of his pious youth. On the See also:threshold of old age the philosopher See also:cast a glance at the days of his childhood. He was nearly sixty when, in 1883, he published those Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse which, after the Life of Jesus, are the work by which he is chiefly known. They possess that lyric See also:note of See also:personal utterance which the public prizes in a man already famous. They showed the blase See also:modern reader that a world no less poetic, no less See also:primitive than that of the Origins of Christianity exists, or still existed within living memory, on the See also:north-western See also:coast of France. They have the See also:Celtic magic of See also:ancient romance and the simplicity, the naturalness, the veracity which the 19th century prized so highly. But his Ecclesiastes, published a few months earlier, his Drames philosophiques, collected in 1888,give a more adequate See also:image of his fastidious See also:critical, disenchanted, yet not unhopeful spirit. These books are often hitter and See also:melancholy, yet not destitute of optimism. They show the attitude towards uncultured See also:Socialism of a philosopher liberal by conviction, by temperament an aristocrat. We learn in them how Caliban (democracy), the mindless See also:brute, educated to his own responsibility, makes after all an adequate ruler; how Prospero (the aristocratic principle, or, if we will, the mind) accepts his dethronement for the See also:sake of greater liberty in the intellectual world, since Caliban proves an effective policeman, and leaves his superiors a See also:free See also:hand in the laboratory; how Ariel (the religious principle) acquires a firmer hold on life, and no longer gives up the See also:ghost at the faintest hint of See also:change. Indeed, Ariel flourishes in the service of Prospero under the See also:external government of the many-headed brute. For the one thing needful is not destined to succumb. Religion and knowledge are as imperishable as the world they dignify. Thus out of the depths rises unvanquished the essential See also:idealism of Ernest Renan. Renan was a great worker. At sixty years of age, having finished the Origins of Christianity, he began his History of See also:Israel, based on a lifelong study of the Old Testament and on the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, published by the See also:Academic des Inscriptions under Renan's direction from the year 1881 till the end of his life. The first volume of the History of Israel appeared in 1887, the third and finest volume in 1891, the last two only after the historian's decease. As a history of facts and theories the book has many faults; as an essay on the See also:evolution of the religious idea it is (despite some passages of frivolity, irony, or incoherence) of extraordinary importance; as a reflection of the mind at Ernest Renan it is the most lifelike of images. In a volume of collected essays, Feuillcs detachees, published also in 1891, we find the same See also:mental attitude, an See also:affirmation of the See also:necessity of piety See also:independent of See also:dogma. On the 12th of October 1892 he died after a few days' illness. In his last years he received many marks of honour, being made an See also:administrator of the College de France and See also:grand officer of the See also:Legion of Honour. Two volumes of the History of Israel, his See also:correspondence with his sister Henriette, his Letters to M. Berthelot, and the History of the Religious Policy of Philippe-le-See also:Bel, which he wrote in the years immediately before his marriage, all appeared during the last eight years of the 19th century.
See See also:Desportes and Bournand, E. Renan, sa See also:vie et son xuvre (1892); E. See also: See also:Darmesteter, La vie de E. R. (1898); Platzhoff, E. Renan, ein Lebensbild (1900); Brauer. Philosophy of Ernest Renan (1904); W. See also:Barry, Renan (1905); See also:Sorel, Le Systeme historique de R. (1905-1906). (A. M. F. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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