Although there is much truth in the foregoing observation, yet on the other hand, when the influence of the monastic ideal upon civilization is studied in its deeper aspects, it cannot be justly maintained that the final effects of monasticism minister to the development of a normal civilization.  Industrial, mental and moral progress depend upon a certain breadth of mind and energy of soul.  Asceticism saps the vitality of human nature and confines the activity of the mind within artificial limits.  “Hence the dreary, sterile torpor,” says Lecky, “that characterized those ages in which the ascetic principle has been supreme, while the civilizations which have attained the highest perfection have been those of ancient Greece and modern Europe, which were most opposed to it.”

The monks did not hesitate to become embroiled in military quarrels, or to incite the fiercer passions of men when it suited their purpose.  Their opposition to kings and princes was often not based on a love of popular freedom, but on an indisposition to share power with secular rulers.  The legislative enactments against heretics, many of which they inspired, clearly show that they neither desired nor tolerated liberty of speech or conduct.  They were the Almighty’s vicars on earth, before whom it was the duty of king and subject to bow down.  Vaughan writes of the period just prior to the Reformation:  “The great want was freedom from ecclesiastical domination; and from the feeling of the hour, scarcely any price would be deemed too great to be paid for that object.”  The history of modern Jesuitism, against which the legislation of almost every civilized nation has been directed, affords abundant testimony to the inherent hostility of the monastic system, even in its modified modern form, to every species of government which in any way guarantees freedom of thought to its people.  This stern fact confronts the student, however much he may be inclined to yield homage to the early monks.  It must be held in mind when one reads this pleasing sentence from Macaulay:  “Surely a system which, however deformed by superstition, introduced strong moral restraints into communities previously governed only by vigor of muscle and by audacity of spirit, a system which taught the fiercest and mightiest ruler that he was, like his meanest bondman, a responsible being, might have seemed to deserve a more respectful mention from philosophers and philanthropists.”

The general effect of monasticism on the state is, therefore, not to be determined by fixing the gaze on any one century of its history, or by holding up some humane and patriotic monk as a representative product of the system.

The Agricultural Services of the Monks