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 mediæval 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.
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 certain what to do with it. Sometimes these vital movements, in which ethical idealism of a rare type was displayed, almost threatened the existence of the hierarchical body which was in control of the organization through which they had to work. This was the situation which developed as a result of the spread of the ideals of the mendicant orders of the thirteenth century. Such an occurrence makes us realize that the social life of the time was creative, and that this creativeness could with difficulty be kept within the control of the formal Church; yet the organs which were necessary for the application of these ideas and enthusiasms were molded in accordance with ecclesiastical institutions, because no other model was at hand. Secular life was too narrow to give either financial support or suggestions. It { 195} had so long been accustomed to assign the moral field to religious institutions.