pas reussi a
accomplir?'

M. Renan then defines the monotheism of the Jews, and of the Semitic
nations in general, as the result of a low, rather than of a high
state of intellectual cultivation: 'Il s'en faut,' he writes (p. 40),
'que le monotheisme soit le produit d'une race qui a des idees
exaltees en fait de religion; c'est en realite le fruit d'une race qui
a peu de besoins religieux. C'est comme _minimum_ de religion, en fait
de dogmes et en fait de pratiques exterieures, que le monotheisme est
surtout accommode aux besoins des populations nomades.'

But even this _minimum_ of religious reflection which is required,
according to M. Renan, for the perception of the unity of God, he
grudges to the Semitic nations, and he is driven in the end (p. 73)
to explain the Semitic Monotheism as the result of a religious
instinct, analogous to the instinct which led each race to the
formation of its own language.

Here we miss the usual clearness and precision which distinguish most
of M. Renan's works. It is always dangerous to transfer expressions
from one branch of knowledge to another. The word 'instinct' has its
legitimate application in natural history, where it is used of the
unconscious acts of unconscious beings. We say that birds build their
nests by instinct, that fishes swim by instinct, that cats catch mice
by instinct; and, though no natural philosopher has yet explained what
instinct is, yet we accept the term as a conventional expression for
an unknown power working in the animal world.

If we transfer this word to the unconscious acts of conscious beings,
we must necessarily alter its definition. We may speak of an
instinctive motion of the arm, but we only mean a motion which has
become so habitual as to require no longer any special effort of the
will.

If, however, we transfer the word to the conscious thoughts of
conscious beings, we strain the word beyond its natural capacities, we
use it in order to avoid other terms which would commit us to the
admission either of innate ideas or inspired truths. We use a word in
order to avoid a definition. It may sound more scientific to speak of
a monotheistic instinct rather than of the inborn image or the
revealed truth of the One living God; but is instinct less mysterious
than revelation? Can there be an instinct without an instigation or an
instigator? And whose hand was it that instigated the Semitic mind to
the worship of one God? Could the same h