However, this class of virtues is again not to be considered as indicative of the only traits which people commend, either openly, or by more subtle and significant signs. It is even safe to say that no group of Christians, be it either small or large, existing in a remote or a modern generation, were ever naïvely satisfied, or brought by dint of training, to act on the principle that these unobtrusive traits were the chief virtues. The reason for this plainly lies in the one-sidedness of such traits. Paulsen, in his “System of Ethics,” points out that whereas the Greeks found positive values in (1) scientific knowledge, (2) esthetic and other pleasures, (3) temperance, (4) courage, (5) justice, (6) honor and high-mindedness, (7) bodily cultivation, (8) economic solvency, (9) family life, and (10) the state, the early Christians considered almost none of these things to be worth their while. And whereas it would be more or less insulting to the memory of Jesus to call the doctrines of the early Christians an extension of his teachings, yet we can say that the unobtrusive virtues which early official Christianity sought to emphasize, are one and all withdrawing reactions, and as such must be rejected as the sole basis of a scientific ethics. We reject them because they are not based upon a sufficient consideration of the total needs of man’s body,—that on which his life and mind depend. Man has not only a flexor system, but an extensor system of muscles as well, and it must be plain from the discussions in the preceding chapters that both of these systems are ethical mechanisms. However, official Christianity has often seen fit, by its exclusive emphasis upon those virtues which involve withdrawing reactions, literally to declare that the extensor system shall be denied a stimulus. The Greeks were far wiser; for even though they may have failed to achieve a conception of virtue which took into consideration the wholesome balance between flexor and extensor activities, they nevertheless did not err in propounding a doctrine that ignored the simplest principles of human behavior.