EVOLUTION IN THE MONASTIC ORDERS, 



BY 



JOHN BELLOWS. 



(Read at Tintern, at the Chepstow Meeting, June 6, 1898) 



Archaeology, as a science, must include something 

 more than the observation of isolated facts. It should 

 co-ordinate such facts and put them in their true place in 

 their relationship to history; and thus help us to a clearer 

 estimate of the evolution which is the underlying law of 

 history. With this in mind, Tintern Abbey is not only 

 an object of beauty in its architecture and environment, 

 but presents a series of endeavours, often renewed, 

 and yet as often failing to accomplish the aim of the 

 earnest men who founded the several monastic orders. 

 The family tie, which is a basis of society, is the 

 greatest of the natural forces that conduce to order : a 

 fact which Confucius had in view when he laid down 

 the principle that the whole government of an Empire 

 should be an evolution from it. The monastic system 

 springs from the opposite theory, being founded on the 

 assumption that 'there is something inherently imperfect 

 in the family relationship, which hinders the highest 

 development of the soul ; and the several monastic orders 

 are so many variations, or modifications, of an ideal which 

 would make the world better by superseding the family, 

 that is, by isolating certain individuals, or communities, 



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