Nor was the personal religion of this pure and candid spirit a possible one for mankind. "A genuine eternal Gospel," wrote Renan of this diary of Marcus, "the book of the _Thoughts_ will never grow old, for it affirms no dogma. The Gospel has grown old in certain parts; Science no longer allows us to admit the naive conception of the supernatural which is its base.... Yet Science might destroy God and the soul, and the book of the _Thoughts_ would remain young in its life and truth." {201} Renan is right; when Science, or anything else, "destroys God and the soul," there is no Gospel but that of Marcus; and yet for men it is impossible; and it is not young--it is senile. Duty without enthusiasm, hope or belief--belief in man, of course, for "God and the soul" are by hypothesis "destroyed"--duty, that is, without object, reason or result, it is a magnificent fancy, and yet one recurs to the criticism that Marcus passed upon the Christians. Is there not a hint of the school about this? Is it not possible that the simpler instincts of men,--instincts with a history as ludicrous as Anthropologists sometimes sketch for us,--may after all come nearer the truth of things than semi-Stoic reflexion? At all events the instincts have ruled the world so far with the co-operation of Reason, and are as yet little inclined to yield their rights to their colleague. They have never done so without disaster. The world did not accept Marcus as a teacher. Men readily recognized his high character, but for a thousand years and more nobody dreamed of taking him as a guide--nobody, that is, outside the schools. For the world it was faith or unbelief, and the two contemporaries already mentioned represent the two poles to which the thoughts of men gravitated, who were not yet ready for a cleavage with the past. [Sidenote: Lucian]