Elsewhere, Erasmus is caustic about such 'works' as fasting. Here, however, Folly points out the purposes of the ascetic practices elaborated in earlier centuries, which was to discipline the passions. It is possible that the human nervous system has become more complex since the early middle ages, and the pain threshold lower. Folly, at any rate, does not use absolutes but prefers to talk in terms of more and less. She insists only on not allowing the ritual, material element in religious practice to submerge the spiritual content.