INTRODUCTION IX

ironically indulgent contemplation of a possibly meaningless universe. This doubtless proceeded from the fact that at bottom Renan's intelligence was réceptive rather than constructive, so subtly impressible and so all-comprehending that it mirrored every system and even every shade of thought, though lacking any ultimate principle of judgment for choosing and fixing any.

Irony, however, is hardly the last word of Renan's philosophy. In his work, as in his life, the serions élément decidedly prédominâtes. Accordingly, under the dual solicitation of religion and science, it was natural that he should for his lifework address himself to what he felt was the most important task awaiting the nineteenth-century historian, a critical history of the origins of Christianity. This is embodied in his Origines, which began with his Vie de Jésus, in 1863, unquestionably the most noisily discussed book of the nineteenth century. The Origines were supplemented by a Histoire du Peuple d'Israël, just completed at the time of his death.

In thèse volumes Renan has continued — one may even say has concluded — the work of eighteenthcentury philosophism, the work of Voltaire and the Encyclopsedists, but he has reenforced their empiric rationalism with the far more effective methods of science. He has aimed at resurrecting the past from the documents it has left, but he interprets thèse according to the criteria of the latter-day