English Conferences of Ernest Renan: Rome and Christianity; Marcus Aurelius (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

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Excerpt from English Conferences of Ernest Renan: Rome and Christianity; Marcus Aurelius

Truth. What we love is history. History well written is always good; for, even if it should prove that man in seeking to seize the infinite has pursued a chimera, the history of these attempts, more generous than successful, will always be use ful. It proves, that, in reality, man goes beyond the circle of his limited life through his aspira tions. It shows what energy he has expended for the sake of his love of the good and true; it teaches us to estimate him, - this poor disinherited one, who, in addition to the sufierings which na ture imposes upon him, imposes still further upon himself the torture of the unknown, the torture of doubt, the severe resistances of virtue, the absti hences of austerity, the voluntary sufferings of the ascetic. IS all this a pure loss? IS this unceasing effort to attain the unattainable as vain as the course of the child who pursues the ever flying object of his desire? It pains me to believe it; and the faith which eludes me when I examine in detail each of the systems scattered throughout the world, I find, in a measure, when I reflect upon all these systems together. All religions may be defective and incomplete; religion in humanity is nothing less than divine, and a mark of superior destiny. N 0, they have not labored in vain those grand founders, those reformers, those prophets of all ages - who have protested against the false evidences of gross materialism, who have beaten.

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