Asceticism, like self-indulgence, is selfish.  It asks, “What shall I do to be saved?” rather than “What shall I do to serve?” Endlessly preoccupied with the endeavor not to do wrong, the ascetics have failed to do the positive good they ought.  The grime that comes through loving service is better than the stainlessness of inactivity; as the poet Spenser puts it, “Entire affection hateth nicer hands.”  And the emphasis upon freedom from taint of sin tends to produce a scorn of others who do not thus deny themselves, a self-righteousness and Pharisaism, a callousness to others, which distorts the judgment as well as dries up the sympathies.

But apart from these dangers, and from a purely personal point of view, asceticism has its evil side.

(1) An overemphasis upon self-denial sacrifices unnecessarily the sweetness and richness of life, stunts it, distorts it, robs it of its natural fruition.  The denial of any satisfaction is cruel except as it is necessary.  Purity, carried to a needless extreme, became celibacy; the virtue of frugality became the vice of a starvation diet, producing the emaciated and weakened saints; the unworldliness which can be in the world but not of it was transformed into the morbidly lonely and futile isolation of the hermits.  These are abnormal and undesirable perversions of human nature.

(2) A reaction from needless repression is almost inevitable.  The attempt radically to alter and repress human nature is nearly always disastrous.  Most of the ascetics had to pass their days in constant struggles against their temptations, and many of them recurrently lapsed into wild orgies of sin, the result of pent-up impulses denied their natural channels.  Morality should be rather directive than repressive, using all of our energies for wise and noble ends, and overcoming evil with good.  A merely negative morality implies the continual dwelling of attention upon sin and the continual rebellion of desire.  It keeps the soul in a state of unstable equilibrium, and defeats its own ends.

R. B. Perry, Moral Economy, chap, ii, secs, ii, iii; chap, iii, secs, ii, iii, iv.  F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book iii, chap.  II.  S. E. Mezes, Ethics, chap, X, xi, Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap, XVIII, secs. 1, 2, 4; chap, XIX, sees. 1, 2, 4.  Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, chap.  IV.  H. C. King, Rational Living, pp. 93-102.  W. dew.  Hyde, The Five Great Philosophies of Life, chaps, I-iv.  H. Bashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book ii, chap.  III.

CHAPTER XI

THE SOLUTION OP SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Duty, like charity, begins at home; and we need to take the motes out of our own eyes before we can see clearly how to help our fellows.  To keep physically well, pure, and prudent, following worthy purposes and smothering unruly desires, is our first business; and there would be much less to do for one another if every one did his duty by himself.