utside this
world.

But social tendencies and relations are always more complex and
uncontrollable than theory or doctrine wishes to allow. Human values
have a way of asserting themselves in all sorts of unexpected ways.
The very act of living forces man to feel and achieve, to strive for
this thing and for that, to enter into warm human relations which lead
out into ambitions and desires. So, in spite of the official, and
generally accepted, denial of human values, these sprang up at the
least encouragement and flowered in custom and art. Thus, even during
the Middle Ages, social activities had their innings and fair measure
of attention. Men loved, and sinned, and fought, and dreamed much as
they did in other days and do now. The thought of another world only
tempered their moments of reflection and deepened their periods of
contrition. There is good reason to believe, moreover, that men
alternated between extremes of mood more than we do to-day with our
settled horizon. The mediaeval outlook did not favor that quiet
temperance which the Greeks achieved in their happiest days.

With the rise of the cities and the national states came the revival of
learning and a fresh interest in all phases of human life. The
complete control of human life by a supernaturalistic religion was then
no longer even a theoretical possibility. Life became a thing of
interest for its own sake, something frankly to be enjoyed. Humanism
had once more appeared in the world.

{194}

But the Church had an organized breadth which went far beyond the
purely religious functions which Protestantism is inclined to associate
with the institution. Within this socially flexible organization arose
the monastic orders whose ideals varied from age to age. To establish
industries, to clear the land, to preach the nobility of work and to
foster commerce, to nurse the sick, to found schools and universities,
to distribute charity, to offer hospitality to wayfarers, to nourish
art and literature, all these activities grew out of the initiative of
noble men who found the atmosphere or associations of organized
Christianity favorable to their endeavors. It was under the shelter of
religion that the finer phases of morality manifested themselves.
Secular life did not possess a stability or organs adequate to the
tasks of social ethics. Whatever new movement appeared naturally
drifted into contact with the Church, even though the Church was not