ave given rise to the theory,
that the new life of the child was actually formed from the blood thus
retained. The beliefs that grew up in explanation of the placenta form
part of the system of interpretation of these phenomena: for the
placenta was regarded as a mass of clotted blood (intimately related to
the child which was supposed to be derived from part of the same
material) which harboured certain elements of the child's mentality
(because blood was the substance of consciousness).]

[260: See S. Reinach, "Les Deesses Nues dans l'Art Oriental et dans
l'Art Grec," _Revue Archeol._, T. XXVI, 1895, p. 367. Compare also the
figurines of the so-called Upper Palaeolithic Period in Europe.]

[261: Chapter I.]

[262: The literature relating to these important discoveries has been
summarized by Wilfrid Jackson in his "Shells as Evidence of the
Migrations of Early Culture," pp. 135-7.]

[263: Cowries were obtained in Neolithic sites at Hissarlik and Spain
(Siret, _op. cit._, p. 18).]

The Origin of Clothing.

The cowry and its surrogates were supposed to be potent to confer
fertility on maidens; and it became the practice for growing girls to
wear a girdle on which to suspend the shells as near as possible to the
organ their magic was supposed to stimulate. Among many peoples[264]
this girdle was discarded as soon as the girls reached maturity.

This practice probably represents the beginning of the history of
clothing; but it had other far-reaching effects in the domain of belief.

It has often been claimed that the feeling of modesty was not the reason
for the invention of clothing, but that the clothes begat modesty.[265]
This doctrine contains a certain element of truth, but is by no means
the whole explanation. For true modesty is displayed by people who have
never worn clothes.

Before mankind could appreciate the psychological fact that the wearing
of clothing might add to an individual's allurement and enhance her
sexual attractiveness, some other circumstances must have been
responsible for suggesting the experiments out of which this empirical
knowledge emerged. The use of a girdle (a) as a protection against
danger to life, and (b) as a means of conferring fecundity on
girls[266] provided the circumstances which enabled men to discover that
the sexual attractiveness of maidens, which in a state of nature was
originally associated with modesty and coyness, was profoundly
intensified by the artifices