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THE CULT OF ASCETICISM & RENUNCIATION
breed progeny when they are not in the position to perform their parental duties. But the restraint thus applied to propagation is an obligatory, temporary measure. There will be no need for it as soon as the social conditions are changed. It does not represent a stupid condemnation of life. Besides, the modern movement of birth-control does not propose stifling of the sexual instinct ; therefore, the temporary restraint of propagation does not make mental monstrositics out of the living generation. But nationalism was unknown to the multitude caught in the crises of the antique social order. The scope and practice of asceticism could not be circumscribed by the consciousness of its social value. It was not associated with a conscious revolutionary struggle for overthrowing the decayed social system, which so hopelessly clouded the perspective of life, with the purpose of building up a new society. It reflected the despair of the victims of the crisis. It was an integral part of the ideology of social dissolution.
Not to plunge other souls in the ocean of worldly sorrows, is a motive nobler than spiritual egoism. Nevertheless, it also amounts to the same thing-a reprehensible attempt to destroy the human race. Had religion any place for logic, loyalty or true idealism, then the religious man should revolt against the sinful cult which recommends the destruction of the noblest creation of God. The teaching of religion is that God created
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