His early book, _L’Avenir de la Science_, glows with ardent belief in this assured progress, which is bound up with his confidence in science and rationality. “Our creed,” he there declares, “is the reasonableness of progress.” This idea of progress is almost as central a point in Renan’s thought as it was in that of Comte, and he gave it a more metaphysical significance. His general philosophy owes much to history, and for him the philosophy of history is the explanation of progress. By this term he means an ever-growing tendency to perfection, to fuller consciousness and life, to nobler, better and more beautiful ends. He thinks it necessary to conceive of a sort of inner spring, urging all things on to fuller life. He seems here to anticipate vaguely the central conception of Guyau and of Bergson. But, like Taine, Renan founds his doctrine of progress on rationalism. He well expresses this in one of his _Drames philosophiques (L’Eau de Jouvence)_, through the mouth of Prospero, who represents rational thought. This character declares that “it is science which brings about social progress, and not progress which gives rise to science. Science only asks from society to have granted to it the conditions necessary to its life and to produce a sufficient number of minds capable of understanding it.”[4] In the preface written for this drama he declares that science or reason will ultimately succeed in creating the power and force of government in humanity. [4] _L’Eau de Jouvence_, Act 4, Scene I., Conclusion. These thoughts re-echo many of the sentiments voiced on behalf of progress by Condorcet, Saint-Simon and Comte. It is interesting, however, to note an important point on which Renan not only parts company with them, but ranges himself in opposition to them. This point is that of socialism or democracy, call it what one will.