SOME HUMAN INSTINCTS. 6j 7 



may forever afterward inhibit any impulse to be modest toward them. 

 This would account for a great deal of actual immodesty, even if an 

 original modest impulse were there. On the other hand, the modest 

 impulse, if it do exist, must be admitted to have a singularly ill-defined 

 sphere of influence, both as regards the presences that call it forth, and 

 as regards the acts to which it leads. Ethnology shows it to have very 

 little backbone of its own, and to follow easily fashion and example. 

 Still, it is hard to see the ubiquity of some sort of tribute to shame, 

 however perverted as where female modesty consists in covering the 

 face alone, or immodesty in appearing before strangers unpainted 

 and to believe it to have no impulsive root whatever. Now, what 

 may the impulsive root be ? I believe that, for one thing, it is shy- 

 ness, the feeling of dread that unfamiliar persons, as explained above, 

 may inspire us withal. Such persons are the original stimuli to our 

 modesty.* But the actions of modesty are quite different from the 

 actions of shyness. They consist of the restraint of certain bodily 

 functions, and of the covering of certain parts ; and why do such par- 

 ticular actions necessarily ensue ? That there may be in the human 

 animal, as such, a "blind" and immediate automatic impulse to such 

 restraints and coverings in respect-inspiring presences, is a possibility 

 difficult of actual disproof. But it seems more likely, from the facts, 

 that the actions of modesty are suggested to us in a roundabout way ; 

 and that, even more than those of cleanliness, they arise from the ap- 

 plication in the second instance to ourselves of judgments primarily 

 passed upon our mates. It is not easy to believe that, even among the 

 nakedest savages, an unusual degree of cynicism and indecency in an 

 individual should not beget a certain degree of contempt, and cheapen 

 him in his neighbor's eyes. Human nature is sufficiently homogeneous 

 for us to be sure that everywhere reserve must inspire some respect, 

 and that persons who suffer every liberty are persons whom others 

 disregard. " Not to be like such people," then, would be one of the 

 first resolutions suggested by social self-consciousness to a child of 

 nature just emerging from the unreflective state. And the resolution 

 would probably acquire effective pungency for the first time when the 

 social self-consciousness was sharpened into a real fit of shyness by 

 some person being present whom it was important not to disgust or 

 displease. Public opinion would of course go on to build its positive 

 precepts upon this germ ; and, through a variety of examples and ex- 

 periences, the ritual of modesty would grow, until it reached the New 

 England pitch of sensitiveness and range, making us say stomach in- 

 stead of belly, limb instead of leg, retire instead of go to bed, and for- 

 bidding us to call a female dog by name. 



* " We often find modesty coming in only in the presence of foreigners, especially of 

 clothed Europeans. Only before these do the Indian women in Brazil cover themselves 

 with their girdle, only before these do the women on Timor conceal their bosom. In Aus- 

 tralia we find the same thing happening." (Th. Waitz, "Anthropologic der Naturvolkcr," 

 vol. i, p. 358). The author gives bibliographical references, which I omit. 



