OUE MONISTIC ETHICS. 363 



of cleanliness, which contrasts the life of the Christian 

 Middle Ages so unfavourably with that of pagan 

 classical antiquity. Christian ethics contains none of 

 those firm commands as to daily ablutions which are 

 theoretically laid down and practically fulfilled in the 

 Mohammedan, Hindoo, and other religions. In many 

 monasteries the ideal of the pious Christian is the 

 man who does not wash and clothe himself properly, 

 who never changes his malodorous gown, and who, 

 instead of regular work, fills up his useless life with 

 mechanical prayers, senseless fasts, and so forth. As 

 a special outgrowth of this contempt of the body we 

 have the disgusting discipline of the flagellants and 

 other ascetics. 



III. — One source of countless theoretical errors and 

 practical blemishes, of deplorable crudity and priva- 

 tion, is found in the false anthropism of Christianity — 

 that is, in the unique position which it gives to man, 

 as the image of God, in opposition to all the rest of 

 nature. In this way it has contributed, not only to 

 an extremely injurious isolation from our glorious 

 mother "nature," but also to a regrettable contempt 

 of all other organisms. Christianity has no place for 

 that well-known love of animals, that sympathy with 

 the nearly related and friendly mammals (dogs, horses, 

 cattle, etc.), which is urged in the ethical teaching of 

 many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. 

 Whoever has spent much time in the south of Europe 

 must have often witnessed those frightful sufferings of 

 animals which fill us friends of animals with the 

 deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one 

 expostulates with these brutal "Christians" on their 

 cruelty, the only answer is, with a laugh : " But the 

 beasts are not Christians." Unfortunately Descartes 



