titutions. The authority, therefore, which
these could boast was due to nothing more than the simple struggle for
existence. Among these institutions were those same three (civil
authority, slavery, private property), which the Fathers had come to
justify by so different a method of argument. Thus, by the late Roman
lawyers private property was upheld on the grounds that it had been
found necessary by the human race in its advance along the road of life.
To our modern ways of thinking it seems as though they had almost
stumbled upon the theory of evolution, the gradual unfolding of social
and moral perfection due to the constant pressure of circumstances, and
the ultimate survival of what was most fit to survive. It was almost by
a principle of natural selection that mankind was supposed to have
determined the necessity of civil authority, slavery, private property,
and the rest. The pragmatic test of life had been applied and had proved
their need.

A third powerful influence in the development of Christian social
teaching must be added to the others in order the better to grasp the
mental attitude of the mediaeval thinkers. This was the rise and growth
of monasticism. Its early history has been obscured by much legendary
detail; but there is sufficient evidence to trace it back far into the
beginnings of Christianity. Later there had come the stampede into the
Thebaid, where both hermit life and the gathering together of many into
a community seem to have been equally allowed as methods of asceticism.
But by the fifth century, in the East and the West the movement had been
effectively organised. First there was the canonical theory of life,
introduced by St. Augustine. Then St. Basil and St. Benedict composed
their Rules of Life, though St. Benedict disclaimed any idea of being
original or of having begun something new. Yet, as a matter of fact, he,
even more efficiently than St. Basil, had really introduced a new force
into Christendom, and thereby became the undoubted father of Western
monasticism.

Now this monasticism had for its primary intention the contemplation of
God. In order to attain this object more perfectly, certain subsidiary
observances were considered necessary. Their declared purpose was only
to make contemplation easier; and they were never looked upon as
essential to the monastic profession, but only as helps to its better
working. Among these safeguards of monastic peace was included the
remova