SCIENCE AND MORALITY. 777 



connected with religion, among others to that of asceticism, at which 

 Mr. Spencer tilts ever and anon with a good deal of vehemence, and 

 of its connection with Christianity. Religion is represented as still 

 imhued with the belief, derived from blood-thirsty ancestors, in a dia- 

 bolical God who is to be propitiated by self-torture. Nothing of the 

 kind is to be found in the Gospel, in the apostolic fathers, or in any 

 form of evangelical Christianity. Jesus was denounced by his ene- 

 mies for not being an ascetic. Paul lived a live of self-denial and vol- 

 untary exposure to suffering and peril ; but it was not for the purpose 

 of self -torture, it was, like his celibacy, for the purpose of propagating 

 the Gospel, as a soldier undergoes toils and privations for the sake of 

 victory, or a man of science for the sake of a discovery. Even the 

 Baptist was not a self -torturer he was a reformer preaching by au- 

 sterity. Launched into the world, Christianity felt the influence of the 

 various currents of thought and tendency Hellenic, Roman, Alexan- 

 drian, and Oriental nor did it escape that of the fakirism which had 

 been generated in the mud of the Ganges. The monks of the Thebaid 

 were fakirs, and may be left to Mr. Spencer's mercy. But so was not 

 Benedict, or Bernard, or Anselm. Western asceticism on the whole 

 corresponded to its name, which denotes not self-torture but self -train- 

 ing the self-training of the spiritual athlete. Its central idea was that 

 of liberating the soul from the shackles of the flesh in order to its com- 

 plete union with the Deity. Chimerical it was, no doubt, and extrava- 

 gant in some of its manifestations, but it was not diabolical, nor did 

 it point to anything diabolical in the nature of the ascetic's God ; and 

 it is by no means clear that, in such a case as that of Anselm, it would 

 not have stood Mr. Spencer's test of pleasure, though the pleasure 

 would have been of a peculiar and perhaps fantastic kind. It was 

 compatible with immense usefulness, social, educational, and even in- 

 dustrial, for monasticism in its prime was a great agricultural improver. 

 Moreover, as alchemy helped to give birth to chemistry, asceticism 

 may have helped, by conquering the brutish appetites which hold un- 

 limited sway over the barbarian, to give birth to rational temperance. 

 No portions of the " Data of Ethics " are better worth reading than 

 those in which the writer inculcates attention to health, both for our 

 own sakes, and for the sake of the offspring to whom our constitutions 

 are to be transmitted ; and preachers, if they wish to be practical, 

 might do a great deal of good by dwelling oftener on the last point. 

 But, waiving the theological form of expression, it is difficult to put 

 the duty of caring properly for the body higher than it was put by 

 the apostle who called the body the temple of the Holy Spirit. And 

 though no one wishes to detract from the dignity of physiological 

 science, or to underrate the benefits which a diffused knowledge of it 

 might confer, it is certain that the temperance, soberness, and chastity 

 which Christianity has labored not without effect to inculcate, are 

 keeping unscientific people in perfect health with the cheerfulness 



