Thus did the religious sentiment seek its satisfaction in the idealization, first of physical force, then of form, and last of mental force, but in each case turned away unsatisfied. Wherein did these ideals fail? The first mentioned in exalting power over principle, might over right. As was well said by the philosophical Novalis: “The ideal of morality has no more dangerous rival than the ideal of physical strength, of the most vigorous life. Through it man is transformed into a reasoning beast, whose brutal cleverness has a fascination for weak minds.”[243-1] The religion of beauty failed in that it addressed the esthetic emotions, not the reasoning power. Art does not promote the good; it owes no fealty to either utility or ethics: in itself, it must be, in the negative sense of the words, at once useless and immoral. “Nature is not its standard, nor is truth its chief end.”[244-1] Its spirit is repose, “the perfect form in perfect rest;” whereas the spirit of religion is action because of imperfection. Even the gods must know of suffering, and partake, in incarnations, of the miseries of men. In the religion of culture what can we blame? That it is lacking in the impulses of action through the isolation it fosters; that it is and must be limited to a few, for it provides no defense for the weaknesses the many inherit; that its tendency is antagonistic to religion, as it cuts away the feeling of dependence, and the trust in the unknown; that it allows too little to enthusiasm ever to become a power. On the other hand, what momenta of true religious thought have these ideals embraced? Each presents some. Physical vigor, regarded as a sign of complete nutrition, is an indispensable preliminary to the highest religion. Correct thought cannot be, without sufficient and appropriate food. If the nourishment is inadequate, defective energy of the brain will be transmitted, and the offspring will revert ancestrally to a lower plane of thought. “It thus happens that the minds of persons of high religious culture by ancestral descent, and the intermarriage of religious families, so strangely end in the production of children totally devoid of moral sense and religious sentiment--moral imbeciles in short.”[245-1] From such considerations of the necessity of physical vigor to elevated thought, Descartes predicted that if the human race ever attain perfection it will be chiefly through the art of medicine. Not alone from emotions of sympathy did the eminent religious teachers of past ages maintain that the alleviation and prevention of suffering is the first practical duty of man; but it was from a perhaps unconscious perception of the antagonism of bodily degeneration to mental progress.