win a larger
tranquillity and a clearer vision from an increased simplicity of life.
I know that to use the word asceticism of one's daily practice is to
incur the judgment of all those whom the world calls good fellows, whose
motto is live and let live, or any other aphorism of convenient and
universal remission. To them asceticism is the deterrent saintliness
which renounces all joy, and with a hard thin voice condemns the
leanings of mankind to reasonable indulgence. The ill-favour drawn down
by ecclesiastical exaggeration upon the good Greek word {askesis}, which
means nothing more than the practice of fitness, has prejudiced men
against all system of conduct bold enough to include it in their
terminology.

Kant's chapter on the Ascetic Exercise of Ethics is a fine defence of
that training of the heart and mind which has no affinity with the
morbid discipline of hair shirt and scourge. "The ascetic exercise of
the monasteries," he says, "inspired by superstitious fear and the
hypocritical disesteem of a man's own self, sets to work with
self-reproaches, whimpering compunction and a torturing of the body. It
is intended not to result in virtue but to make expiation for sins, and
by self-imposed punishment the sinners expect to do penance, instead of
ethically repenting." And again--"All ethical gymnastics consist
therefore singly in subjugating the instincts and appetites of our
physical system ... a gymnastic exercise rendering the will hardy and
robust, which by the consciousness of regained freedom makes the heart
glad."

This is sound doctrine, neither ungodly nor inhuman, the word of a man
in whose veins the warm blood yet flowed. Few pictures of venerable age
please more than that of the old philosopher of Koenigsberg drawn for us
by de Quincey in one of his miscellaneous Essays. There we see Immanuel
Kant, leading his tranquil sane existence, giving his friends sober
entertainment, talking brightly of mundane things, practising "the
hilarity which goes hand in hand with virtue." For me the very
eccentricities of his daily routine have a fascination, and I read them
as a devout Catholic reads many a quaint passage in the _Acta
Sanctorum_. How wise was his nightly habit, as he settled himself in bed
before falling asleep, to asseverate with a sigh of thankfulness that no
man living was more contented and healthier than he! Here is the true
asceticism, the child's glad abandonment to nature maintained and grow