ole. It might
condemn but it could not suppress the natural impulse of man to
propagate his race: it might hamper economic forces, but it could not
destroy them. It eventually led to a compromise in every department of
life, but for centuries it retained its domination over men's minds
and to some material extent over their actions.

Such was the environment in which Islam was planted: its deepest roots
had been fertilised with Christian theory, and in spite of Muhammed's
call to repentance, its most characteristic manifestations were
somewhat worldly and non-ascetic. "Islam knows not monasticism" says
the tradition which this tendency produced. The most important
compromise of all, that with life, which Christianity only secured by
gradual steps, had been already attained for Islam by Muhammed himself
and was included in the course of his development. As Islam now
entered the Christian world, it was forced to pass through this
process of development once more. At the outset it was permeated with
the idea of Christian asceticism, to which an inevitable opposition
arose, and found expression in such statements as that already quoted.
But Muhammed's preaching had obviously striven to honour the future
life by painting the actual world in the gloomiest colours, and the
material optimism of the secular-minded was unable to check the
advance of Christian asceticism among the classes which felt a real
interest in religion. Hence that surprising similarity of views upon
the problem of existence, which we have now to outline. In details of
outward form great divergency is apparent. Christianity possessed a
clergy while Islam did not: yet the force of Christian influence
produced a priestly class in Islam. It was a class acting not as
mediator between God and man through sacraments and mysteries, but as
moral leaders and legal experts; as such it was no less important than
the scribes under Judaism. Unanimity among these scholars could
produce decisions no less binding than those of the Christian clergy
assembled in church councils. They are representatives of the
congregation which "has no unanimity, for such would be an error."
Islam naturally preferred to adopt unanimous conclusions in silence
rather than to vote in assemblies. As a matter of fact a body of
orthodox opinion was developed by this means with no less success than
in Christendom. Any agreement which the quiet work of the scholars had
secured upon any question wa