Identifier: evolutionoffranc00coub (find matches)
Title: The evolution of France under the third republic
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Coubertin, Pierre de, 1863-1937 Hapgood, Isabel Florence, 1850-1928. tr
Subjects:
Publisher: New York (etc.) T. Y. Crowell and company
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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d with him, and his works fur-nish reinforcements to all armies. This is a very rareoccurrence, and one which could not fail to producean impression by its novelty. Taine began to write inthe days of decadence, when men doubted everything,except the legitimateness of doubt, so that doubt hadgradually come to be a negative religion, and even inorder to be reckoned among the deniers one had torecite a credo. But negation could not satisfy men forlong ; they were tired of denying ; they could notbelieve, but they longed to know. Taine proved thatit was possible to learn apart from any preconceivedidea, from any principle laid down a priori; that to thisend it sufficed to go straight ahead, paying attentionto the smallest pebble in the road, and avoiding noobstacle, permitting no impediment. Such a method,even if it produced no direct results, contained thegerm of unlimited improvement for him who shouldput it in practice. 1 A. Sabatier, Taine. (Le Temps newspaper, March 7, 1893.) 2 ihid.
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ERNEST RENAN, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. IDEAS AND HABITS. 377 But these things were not known outside of a smallcircle of open and audacious minds. Science could notwin young Frenchmen Avithout being dressed up andrendered attractive. This was the work of ErnestRenan. In the style of Taine, the epithet was alwaysan argument : everything was directed towards in-structing and convincing; nothing was sacrificed to thedesire to please or to charm. ^ In that of Renan, thepoet appeared behind the learned man. His erudi-tion furnishes him with new and profound views ; itopens to him, on all sides, those distant perspectiveswhich seem to extend into infinity the subjects of whichhe treats. 2 At the beginning of his career he estab-lished his reputation as a learned man by importantworks ; in that way he acquired the right to speak theaerial language of a poet. No one understands so wellas he how to mingle the fancies of ingenious supposi-tions with the exact data of learning. The wealth ofhis im

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