er money penalties or penances. Yet the
notion of celibacy for the clergy had been so established by discipline
in the usage of priests and the mores of Christendom that a married
priest was a disgusting and intolerable idea. At the same time usage had
familiarized everybody with the concubinage of priests and prelates, and
all Christendom knew that popes had their bastards living with them in
the Vatican, where they were married and dowered by their fathers as
openly as might be done by princes in their palaces. The falsehood and
hypocrisy caused deep moral corruption, aside from any judgment as to
what constituted the error or its remedy. Pope Pius II was convinced
that there were better reasons for revoking the celibacy of the clergy
than there ever had been for imposing it,[2209] but he was not a man to
put his convictions into effect. The effect on character of violation of
an ascetic rule, acknowledged and professed, was the same as that of the
violation of one of the Ten Commandments.

+698. How Christian asceticism ended.+ By the beginning of the sixteenth
century the ascetic views and tastes were all gone, overwhelmed by the
ideas and tastes of a period of commerce, wealth, productive power,
materialism, and enjoyment. In the new age the pagan joy in living was
revived. Objects of desire were wealth, luxury, beauty, pleasure,--all
of which the ascetics scorned and cursed. The reaction was favorable to
a development of sensuality and materialism; also of art. Modern times
have been made what they are by industry on rational lines of effort,
with faith in the direct relation of effort to result. The aleatory
element still remains, and it is still irrational, but the attitude of
men towards it is changed. All the ground for asceticism is taken away.
We work for what we want with courage, hope, and faith, and we enjoy the
product as a right. If the luck goes against us, we try again. We are
very much disinclined to any increase of pain or of fruitless labor.
There is a great change in the mores of the entire modern society about
the aleatory element. That change accounts for a great deal of the
modern change of feeling about religion.

[2150] Spix and Martius, _Brasil_, 1318.

[2151] Hearn, _Japan_, 165.

[2152] _Marius the Epicurean_, 357.

[2153] Galton, _Hered. Genius_, 239.

[2154] Lea, _Inquisition_, II, 330.

[2155] _Psyche_, II, 101.

[2156] Rohde, _Psyche_, II, 121-130.

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