Second, the reaction against the Church involved among its other elements a passionate contempt for all asceticism.

This happened to fall in with the general relaxation of morals that followed Lewis's gloomy rigour.
Consequently even men of pure life, like Condorcet, carried the theoretical protest against asceticism so far as to vindicate the practical immorality of the time.

This is one of those enormous drawbacks that people seldom take into account when they are enumerating the blessings of superstition.

Mediaeval superstition had produced some advantages, but now came the set-off.

Durable morality had been associated with a transitory religious faith.