The Infinite, continues Renan, surrounds our finite world above and below. It stretches on the one hand to the infinitely large concourse of worlds and systems, and, on the other, to the infinitely little as atoms, microbes and the germs by which human life itself is passed on from one generation to another. The prospect of the world we know involves logically and fatally, says Renan, atheism. But this atheism, he adds, may be due to the fact that we cannot see far enough. Our universe is a phenomenon which has had a beginning and will have an end. That which has had no beginning and will have no end is the Absolute All, or God. Metaphysics has always been a science proceeding upon this assumption, “Something exists, therefore something has existed from all eternity.” which is akin to the scientific principle, “No effect with- out a cause.”[17]
[17] _Examen de Conscience philosophique_, p. 412 of the volume _Feuilles détachées_.
We must not allow ourselves to be misled too far by the constructions or inductions about the uniformity and immutability of the laws of nature. “A God may reveal himself, perhaps, one day.” The infinite may dispose of our finite world, use it for its own ends. The expression, “Nature and its author,” may not be so absurd as some seem to think it. It is true that our experience presents no reason for forming such an hypothesis, but we must keep our sense of the infinite. “Everything is possible, even God,” and Renan adds, “If God exists, he must be good, and he will finish by being just.” It is as foolish to deny as to assert his existence in a dogmatic and thoughtless manner. It is upon this sense of the infinite and upon the ideals of Goodness, Beauty and Love that true faith or piety reposes.
Love, declares Renan, is one of the principal revelations of the divine, and he laments the neglect of it by philosophy. It runs in a certain sense through all living beings, and in man has been the school of gentleness and courtesy—nay more, of morals and of religion. Love, understood in the high sense, is a sacred, religious thing, or rather is a part of religion itself. In a tone which recalls that of the New Testament and Tolstoi, Renan beseeches us to remember that God _is_ Love, and that where Love is there God is. In loving, man is at his best; he goes out of himself and feels himself in contact with the infinite. The very act of love is veritably sacred and divine, the union of body and soul with another is a holy communion with the infinite. He remarks in his _Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse_, doubtless remembering the simple purity and piety of his mother and sister, that when reflection has brought us to doubt, and even to a scepticism regarding goodness, then the spontaneous affirmation of goodness and beauty which exists in a noble and virtuous woman saves us from cynicism and restores us to communication with the eternal spring in which God reflects himself. Love, which Renan with reason laments as having been neglected on its most serious side and looked upon as mere sentimentality, offers the highest proof of God. In it lies our umbilical link with nature, but at the same time our communion with the infinite. He recalls some of Browning’s views in his attitude to love as a redeeming power. The most wretched criminal still has something good in him, a divine spark, if he be capable of loving.