Ernest RENAN (1823-1892). Autograph manuscript; 1 1/4 pages in-8. On the idea of nation. Heavily crossed out and corrected draft, with additions on the facing page of an address. He insisted almost as much "on what philology does not teach us as on what it does teach us". But he denounced the abuse made of this science, by a false application "to the affairs of the present time. The language and the race appear to certain politicians the only base which constitutes the right of the nations ". For the French doctrine: "Above language, race, religion, geography, interests, we place the consent of the populations". And, after having given the example of Switzerland, he declares: "A nation, it is for us a soul, a spirit, a spiritual family, resulting in the past, of memories, sacrifices, glories, often of mourning and common regrets, in the present of the desire to continue to live together. A nation is to have done great things together, and to want to do them again"... Etc. [Renan will take up these ideas again in Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? (1882)] We enclose a L.A.S., March 27, 1884 (1 p. in-8).