OUK MONISTIC ETHICS. 365 



that have so high a value in the eyes of the monist, 

 are worthless — nay, injurious — for the most part, 

 according to Christian teaching ; the stern code of 

 Christian morals should look just as unfavourably on 

 the pursuit of these pleasures as our humanistic 

 ethics fosters and encourages it. Once more, there- 

 fore, Christianity is found to be an enemy to civiliza- 

 tion, and the struggle which modern thought and 

 science are compelled to conduct with it is, in this 

 additional sense, a " cvltwr-kampf" 



V. — Another of the most deplorable aspects of 

 Christian morality is its belittlement of the life of the 

 family, of that natural living together with our next of 

 kin which is just as necessary in the case of man as 

 in the case of all the higher social animals. The 

 family is justly regarded as the " foundation of 

 society," and the healthy life of the family is a 

 necessary condition of the prosperity of the State. 

 Christ, however, was of a very different opinion : with 

 his gaze ever directed to " the beyond," he thought as 

 lightly of woman and the family as of all other goods 

 of " this life." Of his infrequent contact with his 

 parents and sisters the Gospels have very little to say ; 

 but they are far from representing his relations with 

 his mother to have been so tender and intimate as 

 they are poetically depicted in so many thousands of 

 pictures. He was not married himself. Sexual love, 

 the first foundation of the family union, seems to have 

 been regarded by Jesus as a necessary evil. His 

 most enthusiastic apostle, Paul, went still farther in 

 the same direction, declaring it to be better not to 

 marry than to marry : "It is good for a man not to 

 touch a woman." If humanity were to follow this 

 excellent counsel, it would soon be rid of all earthly 



