no means a small body in Russia, that applies the gospel command in this stringent fashion. The wish announced by St. Paul (Corinthians vii. 7), "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I; but if they cannot contain, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to burn," soon became a command, and since the fourth century the Catholic Church has advocated celibacy of the clergy, although it was not enforced until the eleventh century (under Gregory VII.). A low view of human nature has survived in the Catholic Church even to our own times. Pope Leo XIII., in his "Encyclical on Freemasons," proclaimed it.* "Human nature," he said, was contaminated by the Fall, and as it is therefore much more prone to vice than to virtue, in order to attain virtue it is absolutely necessary to restrain the wild impulses of the soul, and to control the appetites by reason." Art has reflected the Christian conception of human nature. Sculpture, which played so great a part in the ancient world, and which was intimately associated with Greek ideals, began to decline rapidly in the Christian era. It lasted longer in the Roman Empire of the East, but in Italy it was almost completely forgotten by the eighth century. Painting survived, but not without undergoing an extraordinary degeneration. All the Italian works of art of the Carlovingian period, displayed the utmost indifference to natural form, and a loss of the sense of harmony and beauty. Later on, Italian art fell lower still. "No one dreamed any longer of studying nature or of observing the human body. An epoch in which the interference of supernatural forces was generally accepted, and in which "De Secta Massonum," Parisiis, 1884, p. 9. The passage was quoted by Brunetière in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1895, vol. CXXVII., p. 116. the conception of the universe was founded on a contrast between the natural and the supernatural, could not admit in its art the rule of natural law or a natural order of events.' The intimate connection between the depreciation of human nature due to Christian doctrine and the inferiority of the art of the middle ages cannot be denied. Taine † writes of the period as follows: "If one considers the stained-glass windows or the images in the cathedrals, or the rude paintings, it appears as if the human race had become degenerate and its blood had been impoverished; pale saints, distorted martyrs, virgins with flat chests, feet too long and bony hands, hermits withered and unsubstantial, Christs that look like crushed and bleeding earthworms, processions of figures that are wan, and stiffened, and sad, upon whom are stamped all the deformities of misery and all the shrinking timidity of the oppressed." The art of the middle ages fell lower and lower until the Renaissance, with its return to the Greek ideal, brought new vigour. The great masters of the Renaissance were in addition scientific men who had studied mathematics and who employed the technique of mensuration; such were Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Michel Angelo, and others. The return to the Greek ideals and to nature brought with it the taste for beauty. When the ancient spirit was born again, its influence reached science and even religion, and the Reformation was a defence of human nature. The Lutheran doctrines resumed the principle of a "development as complete as * Schnaase, Geschichte der bildenden Künste, vol. III., pp. 577, 584, and vol. IV., p. 718. ↑ "Philosophie de l'Art," Fourth Edition, 1885, vol. LXXXVIII., P. 352. possible, of all the natural powers" of man, and saw in that ideal a guide for humanity. Compulsory celibacy was abolished, and free play was given to all the tendencies in conformity with the laws of nature.* Besides those whose religion led them to despise the human body, there have been many savage races and tribes who have practised mutilations of the body. It would be a long list were I to set out all the modes in which the huinan body has been disfigured. Treatises on Ethnography and the volumes of travellers contain a multitude of details of this sort. The hair, the teeth and the lips have been subjected to treatment with the object of making them as unlike the natural condition as is possible. Many of the lower races discolour their teeth, or remove some of them, or file them to points. Others insert in the lips. pieces of wood, of stone, or of bone. A whole chapter might be occupied with an account of the disfiguring devices of tattooers. The skull, the breasts, and the feet, have all been subjected to deforming treatment. Although there is not enough evidence to set down these practices to the existence of definite and self-conscious religious or philosophic doctrine, it is at least certain that the people among whom they occur are far from revering human nature in the fashion of the Greeks, but rather attempt to distort it in accordance with their own taste. Discontent with the natural conditions of existence is, as we have seen, so widespread that there is good reason for an inquiry as to the existence of some general principle underlying this diversity of opinion regarding human nature. I have already shown that this question of human nature has for long interested mankind, and has shared * Reinhard, "System der christlichen Moral," vol. IV., 1814, p. 831, and vol. III., p. 14, 1813. largely in the formation of ideas of the good and the beautiful. It is not too soon to submit the problem to rational investigation, using those rigid methods of science which have been learned in our epoch. I shall try to give an exposition of human nature in its strength and in its weakness. But before passing to man, I shall survey the lower forms of life, hoping to fix some landmarks that will be useful in the study of the larger problem. CHAPTER II HARMONIES AND DISHARMONIES INFERIOR TO MAN AMONGST BEINGS The organised world before the appearance of man on the LONG before man appeared on the earth animals and plants were distributed over it. Some of these were endowed with but vague senses, while others had well-developed instincts, and some even a certain degree of intelligence which they applied for their self-preservation and for the propagation of their own kind. Many species, well adapted for the resistance of external influences, have survived from very early times to the present day. In the Carboniferous period birds and mammals did not yet exist, and the thick forests, with undergrowths of gigantic ferns, were inhabited by large numbers of articulated animals, amongst which were scorpions and insects. The scorpions of that time resemble in every way those that actually live at the present day in tropical countries; and amongst the insects of that early epoch were some very B |