THE WONDERS OF LIFE 



breast and back by low dresses (with the object of 

 sexual excitement) which was the fashion of forty years 

 ago.^ For centuries we have had the pernicious fashion 

 of the corset, an article that is as offensive from the 

 aesthetic as from the hygienic point of view. Thousands 

 of women are sacrificed every year to this pitiful fashion, 

 through disease of the liver or lungs; nevertheless, the 

 craze for the hour-glass shape of the female form con- 

 tinues, and the reform of clothing makes little headway. 

 It is just the same with numbers of fashions in the 

 home and in society, of devices in commerce and laws 

 in the state. Everywhere the demands of reason ad- 

 vance little in their struggle with the venerable usages 

 of tradition. 



A false sense of honor dominates our social life, just 

 as a false sense of modesty controls our clothing. The 

 true honor of man or woman consists in their inner 

 moral dignity, in the determination to do only what they 

 conceive to be good and right, not in the outer esteem 

 of their fellows or in the worthless praise of a conven- 

 tional society. Unfortunately, we have to admit that 

 in this respect we are still largely ruled by the foolish 

 views of a lower civilization, if not of crude barbarians. 



In many other features of our life besides this false 

 modesty and false honor we perceive the force of social 

 usage. Many of what are thought to be honorable 

 customs are relics of barbarism; much of our morality 

 is, in the light of pure reason, downright immorality. 

 As even the latter is due to adaptation, and as the same 

 custom may be at one time thought useful and fitting, 

 at another time injurious and bad, we see again that it 

 is impossible to restrict the idea of adaptation to useful 

 variations. We may say the same of the changing rules 



' At the moment I translate this, telej^rams from Germany 

 announce that, by the emperor's orders, a number of ladies were 

 excluded from the opera for not observing this custom. — Trans. 



430 



