OUB MONISTIC RELIGION. 347 



III. — But monism enters into its strongest opposi- 

 tion to Christianity on the question of beauty. Primi- 

 tive Christianity preached the worthlessness of earthly 

 life, regarding it merely as a preparation for an 

 eternal life beyond. Hence it immediately followed 

 that all we find in the life of a man here below, all that 

 is beautiful in art and science, in public and in private 

 life, is of no real value. The true Christian must 

 avert his eyes from them ; he must think only of a 

 worthy preparation for the life beyond. Contempt of 

 nature, aversion from all its inexhaustible charms, 

 rejection of every kind of fine art, are Christian 

 duties ; and they are carried out to perfection when a 

 man separates himself from his fellows, chastises his 

 body, and spends all his time in prayers in the cloister 

 or the hermit's cell. 



History teaches us that this ascetical morality that 

 would scorn the whole of nature had, as a natural 

 consequence, the very opposite effect to that it 

 intended. Monasteries, the homes of chastity and 

 discipline, soon became dens of the wildest orgies ; 

 the sexual commerce of monks and nuns has inspired 

 shoals of novels, as it is so faithfully depicted in the 

 literature of the Renaissance. The cult of the 

 " beautiful," which was then practised, was in 

 flagrant contradiction with the vaunted " abandon- 

 ment of the world " ; and the same must be said of 

 the pomp and luxury which soon developed in the 

 immoral private lives of the higher ecclesiastics and 

 in the artistic decoration of Christian churches and 

 monasteries. 



It may be objected that our view is refuted by the 

 splendour of Christian art, which, especially in the 

 best days of the Middle Ages, created works of 



