The nature of man : studies in human optimism / by Élie Metchnikoff ; the English translation edited by Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell ; revised and brought up to date by C.M. Beadnell.

  • Metchnikoff, Elie, 1845-1916.
Date:
1938
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of man : studies in human optimism / by Élie Metchnikoff ; the English translation edited by Sir P. Chalmers Mitchell ; revised and brought up to date by C.M. Beadnell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Greeks, for whom there did not exist the idea of a struggle against the supposed corruption and imperfection of man? The dualistic theory made such demands on its proselytes that these, absorbed in the salvation of their souls, sank from the physical point of view to the level of wild beasts. Hermits resorted to the lairs of animals, abandoned their clothing and went about naked with shaggy and disordered hair. In Mesopotamia and a part of Syria there arose a sect who had no dwellings and who ate neither bread nor vegetables, but wandered on the hills and fed on the herbage. Cleanliness of the body was regarded as an indication of corruptness of the soul, and among the most highly venerated of the saints were those who took no care of the body. Athanasius relates with approval that when St. Antony, the father of monks, became old he never washed his feet.1 Such doctrines soon brought about a most serious per¬ version of the innate instincts of the human race. The senses of family and of society became so weakened that fanatical Christians were more than indifferent to their kinsmen and countrymen. It is told of the Abbot Sisoes that, on a believer asking to be received into the convent, he inquired if the suppliant had any one akin to him. “ I have only a son,” said the Christian. “ Well, then,” said the abbot, “ take your son and cast him into the river, for thus only may you become a monk.” The father set about to do the bidding of the abbot, and it was only at the last moment that the order was recalled. For admission into a Christian com¬ munity it was necessary to renounce one's country.1 In the opinion of the ministers of the Scotch Church of the seventeenth century, according to Buckle,2 there was nothing in the created universe so monstrous and so horrible as man. 1 Lecky, loc. cit. 2 Buckle, History of Civilization in England.