OUR MONISTIC ETHICS, 361 



of its moral teaching as the highest and all-embracing 

 commandment, it follows that our monistic ethics is 

 in complete harmony on this important point, not 

 only with the ethics of the ancient heathens, but 

 also with that of Christianity. Unfortunately this 

 harmony is disturbed by the fact that the gospels and 

 the Pauline epistles contain many other points of 

 moral teaching, which contradict our first and supreme 

 commandment. Christian theologians have fruitlessly 

 striven to explain away these striking and painful 

 contradictions by their ingenious interpretations. We 

 need not enter into that question now, but we must 

 briefly consider those unfortunate aspects of Christian 

 ethics which are incompatible with the better thought 

 of the modern age, and which are distinctly injurious 

 in their practical consequences. Of that character 

 is the contempt -which Christianity has shown for self, 

 for the body, for nature, for civilization, for the family, 

 and for woman. 



I. — The supreme mistake of Christian ethics, and 

 one which runs directly counter to the Golden Rule, is 

 its exaggeration of love of one's neighbour at the 

 expense of self-love. Christianity attacks and despises 

 egoism on principle. Yet that natural impulse is 

 absolutely indispensable in view of self-preservation ; 

 indeed, one may say that even altruism, its apparent 

 opposite, is only an enlightened egoism. Nothing 

 great or elevated has ever taken place without egoism, 

 and without the passion that urges us to great sacri- 

 fices. It is only the excesses of the impulse that are 

 injurious. One of the Christian precepts that were 

 impressed upon us in our early youth as of great 

 importance, and that are glorified in millions of 

 sermons, is : " Love your enemies, bless them that 



