This state of _nuance_ Renan asserts to be the one of the hour for philosophy. It is not the time, he thinks, to attempt to strengthen by abstract reasoning the “proofs” of God’s existence or of the reality of a future life. “Men see just now that they can never know anything of the supreme cause of the universe or of their own destiny. Nevertheless they are anxious to listen to those who will speak to them about either.”[13] [13] From his Preface to _Drames philosophiques_. Knowledge, Renan maintained, lies somewhere between the two schools into which the majority of men are divided. “What you are looking for has long since been discovered and made clear,” say the orthodox. “What you are looking for is impossible to find,” say the practical positivists, the political “raillers” and the atheists. It is true that we shall never know the ultimate secret of all being, but we shall never prevent man from desiring more and more knowledge or from creating for himself working hypotheses or beliefs. Yet although Renan admits this truth he never approaches even the pragmatist position of supporting “creative beliefs.” He rather urges a certain passivity towards problems and opinions. We should, he argues in his _Examen de Conscience philosophique_,[14] let them work themselves out in us. Like a spectator we must let them modify our “intellectual retina”; we must let reality reflect itself in us. By this he does not mean to assert that the truth about that reality is a matter of pure indifference to us-far from it. Precisely because he is so conscious of the importance of true knowledge, he is anxious that we should approach the study of reality without previous prejudices. “We have no right,” he remarks, “to have a desire when reason speaks; we must listen and nothing more.”[15] [14] In his _Feuilles detachées_, pp. 401-443. [15] _Feuilles détachées_, p. 402.