[214] The reader is probably aware that celibacy was not always the rule among the clergy of the Holy Catholic Church. It was only enforced by law during the fourth century A.D. Now, it is my theory that it was this instinctive vulgar predilection of the female in favour of material success that was partly responsible for compelling the authorities of the Church ultimately to make celibacy a duty among the clergy. Because as the bulk of them were, by virtue of their profession, poor, it was impossible for them to find women of their own station to marry them, and in consequence they were thrown on the lowest women, or the prostitutes, of the time. To avoid the abasement of the ecclesiastical body by this inevitable law, the authorities therefore prescribed celibacy. H. H. Milman, D.D., in his _History of Latin Christianity_, admits that celibacy was enforced among the clergy to save the Church from degeneration, but he gives as a reason that ecclesiastical matrimony would have led to the holy office passing from father to son, and thus to grandson and great-grandson. Why this should necessarily have led to degeneration is not clear, unless he assumes, as I do, that the clergy would have had to marry beneath them. See Vol. IV (Ed. London, 1864), pp. 17-18. [215] That acute thinker, Schopenhauer, realized this, and spoke of the harm that women do to modern society by stimulating the most sordid and ignoble ambitions of men. See Essay, _Ueber die Weiber_, in the 2nd Vol. of the _Parerga und Paralipomena_, chap. XXVII, para. 369. [216] An intelligent working man once said in my presence, “Almighty God made woman, and money made ladies.” I have wondered ever since whether the deep wisdom in this remark was original, or whether there is any national saw embodying this sentiment. [217] In White’s _Natural History of Selborne_ there are some interesting and illuminating remarks on this point. See Edward Jesse’s edition (London, 1898), pp. 223 (Footnote) and 333. [218] See the Chapter on the Old Maid. [219] This, by the by, was recognized by Pope. See his _Moral Essays_ (Epistle II, To a Lady):— “In men, we various passions find; In women, two almost divide the kind; Those, only fixed, they first and last obey, The love of pleasure, and the love of sway.” [220] _The Book of Manu_, chap. IX, verse 7. [221] _The Book of Manu_, verses 2 and 3. [222] For the necessary relationship of vanity and modesty, see Chapter on Divorce, pp. 223-225 _ante_. [223] Op. cit., p. 211. [224] A vain man is just as dangerous when he has power; because he too judges his fellows only according to how they treat him.