Renan thinks that if democratic ideas should secure a clear triumph, science and scientific teaching would soon find the modest subsidies now accorded them cut off. He fears the approach of an era of mediocrity, of vulgarity, in fact, which will persecute the intellectuals and deprive the world of liberty. He is not thoughtlessly optimistic; he was far too shrewd an intellect for that. Our age, he suggests, may be regarded in future as the turning point of humanity’s history, that point where its deterioration set in, the prelude to its decline and fall. But he asserts, as against this, that Nature does not know the meaning of the word “discouragement.” Humanity, proving itself incapable of progress, but only capable of further deterioration, would be replaced by other forms. “We must not, because of our personal tastes, our prejudices perhaps, set ourselves to oppose the action of our time. This action goes on without regard to us and probably is right.”[5] The future of science is assured. With its progress, Renan points out, we must reckon upon the decay of organised religion, as professed by sects or churches. The disappearance of this organised religion will, however, result most assuredly in a temporary moral degeneration, since morality has been so conventionally bound up with the Church. An era of egoism, military and economic in character, will arise and for a time prevail. [5] Preface to _Souvenirs d’Enfance et de Jeunesse_. Yet we must not, Renan reminds us, grumble at having too much unrest and conflict. The great object in life is the development of the mind, and this requires liberty or freedom. The worst type of society is the theocratic state, or the ancient pontifical dominion or any modern replica of these where dogma reigns supreme. A humanity which could not be revolutionary, which had lost the attraction of “Utopias,” believing itself to have established the perfect form of existence would be intolerable. This raises also the query that if progress be the main feature of our universe, then we have a dilemma to face, for either it leads us to a _terminus ad quem_, and so finally contradicts itself, or else it goes on for ever, and it is doubtful then in what sense it can be a progress.