Ernest Renan 
Future of Science 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The year 1848 made an exceedingly keen impression upon me. Until then I had never given a thought to socialistic problems. Those problems, starting from the earth, as it were, and frightening people, got hold of my mind and became an integral part of my philosophy. A paper on the study of Greek in the Middle Ages which I had begun in answer to a question of I Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres had engrossed all my thoughts. After that I passed my examination as Doctor of Philosophy in September. Towards October I felt myself again. I felt the need of summing up in a volume the new faith which with me had replaced shattered Catholicism. This took me the last two months of 1848 and the first four or five months of 1849. The beginners naive but ambitious dream was to publish that big volume there and then. On the 15 th July, 1849, I gave an extract from it to La Liherte de Penser with a note to the efi ect that the volume would appear in a few weeks.<br><br>It was a great piece of presumption indeed.