Another criticism which Renan brings against the ethic of Christianity is its insistence upon humility as a virtue. He sees nothing virtuous in it as it is generally interpreted: quite rightly he suspects it of hypocritically covering a gross pride, after the manner of the Pharisees. He gives a place to honest asceticism which has its nobility, even although it be a narrow, misconceived ideal. Much nobler is it, he thinks, than the type of life which has only one object, getting a fortune. This leads him to another remark on the moral hypocrisy of so many professedly religious folk. Having an easy substance and possessing already a decent share of this world’s goods, they devote all their energies to the pursuit of pleasure or of further superfluous wealth. From this position they criticise the worker who endeavours to improve his lot, and have the audacity to tell him in pious fashion that he must not be materialistic, and must not set his heart on this world’s goods. It would be laughable were it not so tragic. The whole question of the relativity of the two positions is overlooked, the whole ethic of the business ignored. Material welfare is good and valuable, says Renan, in so far as it frees man’s spirit from mean and wretched dependence and a cramped life which injures development, physical and spiritual. These goods are a means to an end. When, therefore, a man, already comfortably endowed, amasses more and more for its own sake, he commits both a profane and immoral act. But when a worker endeavours to augment his recompense for his labour, he is but demanding “what is the condition of his redemption. He is performing a virtuous action.”[3] [3] _L’Avenir de la Science_, p. 83. Sound as many of these considerations undoubtedly are, they come from the Renan, who wrote in the years 1848-9 _L’Avenir de la Science_. He lived long enough to see that these truths had complements, that there might be, even ethically, another side. In speaking of Progress this has been noted: in his later years he forecasted the coming of an era of egoism, of national and industrial selfishness, working itself out in policies of military imperialism among the nations, and of economic greed and tyranny among the proletariat. His remarks about the virtuous action of the worker bettering his lot were inspired by the socialism of Saint-Simon. Renan did not at that time raise in his own mind the question of the workers themselves carrying their reaction so far, that it, although just at first, might reach a point where it became a dictatorship decreed by self-interest alone. It is in Renouvier that we find this danger more clearly indicated. In so far as Renan felt it, his solution was that which he suggested for the elimination of all social wickedness— namely, the increase of education. He looked upon wickedness as a symptom of a lack of culture, particularly the lack of any moral teaching.