resence of their own people
cover themselves as soon as they become conscious of the lustful
inquisitive eyes of Europeans. Stratz refers to the prevalence of this
impulse of offended modesty in Japan, and mentions that he himself failed
to arouse it simply because he was a physician, and, moreover, had long
lived in another land (Java) where also the custom of nakedness
prevails.[43] So long as this unnatural prurience exists a free
unqualified nakedness is rendered difficult.

Modesty is not, however, the only natural impulse which has to be
considered in relation to the custom of nakedness. It seems probable that
in cultivating the practice of nakedness we are not merely carrying out a
moral and hygienic prescription but allowing legitimate scope to an
instinct which at some periods of life, especially in adolescence, is
spontaneous and natural, even, it may be, wholesomely based in the
traditions of the race in sexual selection. Our rigid conventions make it
impossible for us to discover the laws of nature in this matter by
stifling them at the outset. It may well be that there is a rhythmic
harmony and concordance between impulses of modesty and impulses of
ostentation, though we have done our best to disguise the natural law by
our stupid and perverse by-laws.

Stanley Hall, who emphasizes the importance of nakedness, remarks
that at puberty we have much reason to assume that in a state of
nature there is a certain instinctive pride and ostentation that
accompanies the new local development, and quotes the observation
of Dr. Seerley that the impulse to conceal the sexual organs is
especially marked in young men who are underdeveloped, but not
evident in those who are developed beyond the average. Stanley
Hall (_Adolescence_, vol. ii, p. 97), also refers to the
frequency with which not only "virtuous young men, but even
women, rather glory in occasions when they can display the beauty
of their forms without reserve, not only to themselves and to
loved ones, but even to others with proper pretexts."

Many have doubtless noted this tendency, especially in women, and
chiefly in those who are conscious of beautiful physical
development. Madame Celine Renooz believes that the tendency
corresponds to a really deep-rooted instinct in women, little or
not at all manifested in men who have consequently sought to
impose artificially on women their own