Erasmus was protesting against the whole perspective on knowledge which sees the only real truth as what is revealed by divine grace, rather than what is available through the reasoning faculties of the human mind and through the acquisition of education. He was expressing his distrust of mysticism, such as that of the Devotio Moderna so strong in his native Netherlands, and he deplored the rejection of the created world which often accompanied it; his detestation of the monastic life was related to this feeling.74 So Augustinian pessimism was not for Erasmus.
