It is certain that if a Tages had cleansed our whole race of its deformities, and if an analogous morality had rendered us indifferent to the illnesses, weaknesses, and sufferings of humanity, regenerative science would not have been able to arise. It is only by recognizing the effects that we can go back to the unhealthy causes, and save humanity from danger. The causes of death are as invisible and intangible as microbes; man may drink poison when he thinks he is drinking nectar. Woe to us if the diseased and degenerate did not exhibit themselves to us as an advance guard, to testify to the unconscious errors which threaten us with perdition. Science does not exactly limit itself to tending the sick, like the personnel of a hospital, but it penetrated by that goodly door, and made its way in a contrary direction towards a normal humanity, unconscious of its danger. The ultimate result of science is not the care of the sick but universal health. We owe the hygienic "comfort" which ensures our health, and diminishes general mortality to so great an extent, to the fact that sick people were collected together and tended.
The promise of regeneration given us by eugenics, which offers us the universal hope of a more flourishing and happier generation than that of the past has been made possible because we mercifully collect all the feeble-minded, the epileptics and the unhealthy. It was to this we had to look in order to find the roads which lead to health, and arrive at the gates of a better world.
When Christ showed the way of salvation to men He pointed to those who were rejected by society, in whom the obvious effects of evil could be seen, because the causes of evil are too subtle, and are not always directly visible: "You hear with your ears and do not understand; you behold with your eyes and do not see."
But, on the other hand, the extreme consequences are obvious, and it is enough that the "will" of man should agree to gather them in charitably and without repugnance in order to obtain salvation. St. Matthew says that at the Last Judgment those who are lost will be separated from those who are saved, and that the King will call the latter to his right hand, saying, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an-hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink ... I was naked and ye clothed me.... I was in prison, and ye came unto me." "And when," replied the just, "saw we thee, O Lord, an-hungered or thirsty or naked? When saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee?" and the King shall answer and say unto them, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ... for I was an-hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ... sick and in prison and ye visited me not." Then shall they answer him, saying, "When saw we thee an-hungered, or a-thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?" Then shall he answer them, saying, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."
This is the fundamental difference between heathen and Christian morality; between intellectual Greek philosophy and practical modern science; between the æsthetic ideal and the ideal of "life."
Positive science, therefore, has made us realize a part of Christianity. We might almost say that the monastic orders practically represented, throughout the centuries and the different civilizations, the only form of life which is really life—that which science has revealed to-day.
They alone, at a period of disorderly excess, had a dietary which begins to be generally recognized as hygienic; they ate coarse bread, fresh fruit, milk fresh from the cow, many vegetables, little meat, at frugal but regular repasts. Withdrawing from the polluted air of crowded cities, they chose large, spacious houses in the open country or, at any rate, rather isolated—if possible, standing on a height. Their luxury was not heavy, padded furniture but large grounds where it was possible to live in the open air. Loose clothing, comfortable sandals, or bare feet, woolen gowns, physical exercise, agricultural work, traveling, made them almost the precursors of the modern life of sport. Every convent spread benefactions all around—received the poor, tended the sick, as if to show that this freer and more privileged life was but a phase, which must necessarily be accompanied by help to humanity. They represented the social and intellectual élite; it was the Benedictines who preserved manuscripts and treasured the arts; it was the followers of Saint Bernard who practised agriculture, and it was the sons of Saint Francis who preached peace.
Or it might be said that modern society, guided by positive study of the laws of life and of the means of saving it, has encountered the religious laws which reveal the paths of life; and realizes a form of civilization which recalls and, in some ways, reproduces the ancient oases of the spirit.